{"id":15734,"date":"2022-10-18T20:55:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T20:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/?p=15734"},"modified":"2022-11-28T22:32:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T22:32:15","slug":"passion-for-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/passion-for-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Passion for Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meet Gemma from Passion for Italy<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\"Owner<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Travel design company Passion for Italy<\/a>\u2019s origins lie in its name. A long-term fascination for Italy has seen Australian founding director Gemma Green Close visit 30 times in the past 32 years. The former research scientist\u2019s skills are evident in her microscopic knowledge of Italy\u2019s arts, culture, history and gastronomy, which allows her to plan stress-free tailored itineraries for her English-speaking clients around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Italian speaker initially stumbled into travel planning: \u201cItaly\u2019s not easy to get around, on the trains and driving on the wrong side of the road. I thought if it\u2019s hard for me and I can communicate, what would it be like for people who can\u2019t speak Italian? So, my aim was to guide people in the right direction and share my passion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her first client, a government conference, \u201cwas a spot of luck\u201d and after organising trips in Italy for friends, she formally started her business in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI created it from scratch because I loved Italy so much. Our marketing ploy is we’ve been there, I\u2019ve travelled the breadth and depth of Italy. You can get a beautiful hotel in a horrible area if you just book online. I work directly with hotels and tour guides; I know the managers of the major hotels we use and can tell clients exactly where to go and how to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clients are consulted to ensure they get a wonderful experience that aligns with their tastes. \u201cMy philosophy is \u2018slow travel\u2019 – it\u2019s more about the culture, history, the museums, cooking courses. My unique selling point is that it’s more quality, not quantity. I really encourage the culture and meeting the Italian people. The people are wonderful; the food and wine, sharing a meal, that to me is the precious thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"During<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Joining Tourwriter <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While Gemma\u2019s passion for Italian history helped launch her business, her future focused views on engaging customers has helped it grow. Her client base has grown through a mix of word-of-mouth recommendations and online activity, including blogs and podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An early adopter of technology, Passion for Italy\u2019s strong online presence grew to incorporate four websites to communicate with staff and clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After being with Tourwriter for many years, Gemma moved to the new product in May 2021 which has allowed her to streamline her workflow further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTourwriter is a huge part of my business, I couldn’t be without it. Once you get the information loaded into the system, it\u2019s great. It is faster to create itineraries now. I used to create them on Word, then edit, then pdf and save to the cloud; now I can just send a link to the client.”<\/p>Gemma green close- founder of Passion for italy <\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can also add the directions and maps \u2013 previously we would have to send these separately. Everything is online for the client and they can access it all from their phones or tablets while travelling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gemma is also saving time by not having to update her website as frequently: \u201cI don\u2019t have to keep adding new apartments, hotels or tours to the Passion for Italy website, instead I can just add the description and as many photos as I like in Tourwriter.\u201d

While Gemma is based in Australia where her family lives, she also has a staff member on the ground in Italy, the wonderful Sabrina Barro. Another benefit of Tourwriter, she says, is easily seeing what each other are up to as they operate on opposite sides of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can see what her itineraries are and check the supplier\u2019s prices and so on \u2013 it\u2019s all there, you don\u2019t have to look everything up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Looking<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Future Growth <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With travel and enquiries starting to crank up again post-pandemic, Gemma is looking forward to expanding her business \u2013 as well as a long-awaited return to Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreen by name and green by nature\u201d, she\u2019s keen to promote more sustainable suppliers, from organic farms and wine producers in Tuscany, to \u2018farm to plate\u2019 style dining experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her clientele is growing, particularly in the US, and she\u2019s on the hunt for travel agents with an in-depth knowledge of Italy to join her, with the potential to grow into the UK and South Africa in future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ll have to train up new staff soon for Tourwriter. I’m glad there is lots of information to help with that and saves me having to do lots of demonstrations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gemma’s love of Italy and her deep understanding of the country, it’s culture and people comes from her own experiences travelling to Italy 30 times from Australia. Passion for Italy was born from this deep understanding. Read more about their story and how Tourwriter helps them streamline their workflow between continents. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-15734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15734"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16189,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15734\/revisions\/16189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15734"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=15734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}