About 5 years ago:
Katjalisa: I just applied for a new job I was really enthusiastic about; I would work as a guide for the biggest walking tour operator in the world. Part of the application was to record a video of the different stops of the tour. I designed my very own very original tour. I was so excited! I knew this job would fit me like a glove. I love telling stories and connecting with people, I love Amsterdam and to show my version of it. After weeks of waiting, finally I received an answer from the head office in Berlin: rejected. Apparently they didn’t appreciate my different approach… I was devastated.
Luckily Anouschka just took over the management position in Amsterdam, eager to get me into the team. She gave me another chance and did all she could to get me on board.
” I feel a lot of gratitude towards Anouschka. She believed in me from the beginning, recognised my potential and supported me throughout the whole time we’ve been working together.”
About 5 years later:
“Guess who I met at the Social Impact Hub?” Berber asked me last year after she got back from pitching at a conference about sustainable tourism.
We found out that the three of us left our old company for similar reasons and shared the same visions about the future of tourism. Anouschka has started building her own travel consultancy Made to be found; a platform that develops and promotes sustainable travel experiences for the mainstream traveler. Berber and I had started Tours that Matter in order to be able to give new kinds of tours. She was lacking the product and we were lacking the platform. After a few meetings in November with Peggy Stein, our business mama, we decided to join forces.
Anouschka will be taking the role of CEO within our team, developing a commercial marketplace to promote our tours. Giving us the chance to focus on what we are good at – design and give Tours that Matter!
We are excited and very much looking forward to be working together – again 🙂
Great to have you on board Anouschka!
A word from Anouschka:
I have always believed in the positive impact and limitless opportunities of tourism, for the traveller as well as the destination. Working in Amsterdam has been difficult for me the past years, because I saw how the city suffered from it’s popularity and tourism got into a negative light. I decided to change my life, quit my job, traveled to the Balkans. Started to work on the promotion of eco- tours and farm stays. And right there and then I could feel it again, witnessing the personal growth of travellers, while protecting stunning natural areas and supporting local communities.
“Tourism done in the right way can be a tool for positive change! It just needs to be managed and organized by people that care, not only about today but also about the future.“
And this is exactly what these ladies where doing; using tours as a tool to talk about what really matters, to create connections and plant seeds of positive change. The type of tourism that I believe in, right here in Amsterdam -the city that needs it the most. But Amsterdam will only be the beginning for us; together we have the dream, the product and the platform. We are ready to change the way we travel.
Every step you take matters!
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