It could only be Made in Italy, or rather made in Romagna, the first beach digitisation app! From an idea of Niccolò Para and Andrea Menghi, two young men from Rimini born in ‘93, Yourbeach came to life in 2013, an online management system to make bookings at Bagno 27 in Rimini easier.
Soon, the project grew to become a complete and customised management system to meet the needs of beach establishment managers and simplify the holidays of millions of tourists, saving them precious time.
Success, however, comes with the pandemic when space management becomes critical to ensure everyone’s safety. In 2021, Yourbeach is renamed Spiagge. The booking platform also gets an app, with a logo featuring a hermit crab, to enable real-time booking.
Figures highlighting growth
Today, more than two thousand beach establishments have joined Spiagge.it, almost a third of Italian lidos, and the trend to use digital services for the beach is growing. In 2022, total spending grew by 90% compared to the previous year, with bookings from the app and portal tripling compared to 2021.
In 2023, online bookings for ‘a place in the sun’ grew by 35%; the app recorded 230,000 downloads and over 500,000 bookings.
Sardinia, Emilia and Apulia the most digital regions
But Spiagge.it is also a valuable tool for discovering, thanks to images and reviews, the wonderful beaches of our country divided by Region, Province, Type of services offered, and Category. For each beach, the app and portal also suggest places to visit and experiences to live. Today, shopping is increasingly digital, and beaches are no exception.
“Italians and foreigners are increasingly demanding,” says CEO Gabriele Greco in an interview with Repubblica, “thanks to the platform they can compare prices, search for photos of facilities and services available, select from digital maps the desired location for their umbrella, choose deckchairs or sunbeds, and immediately finalize the online payment.” Sardinia, Emilia-Romagna and Apulia are the regions with the largest increase in online bookings in 2024.
Bad weather insurance and umbrella sharing
Spiagge.it offers two unique services: blockchain-based parametric insurance and umbrella sharing. The first, currently provided exclusively by Spiagge.it, offers an automatic refund in the event of bad weather if you take out the insurance. The second allows you to share and make your umbrella available when you are not using it and leave it empty on the beach.
The future? Not just Italy
Today Spiagge.it, with Gabriele Greco CEO, is a leading portal in Italy for booking beach umbrellas and beach services, is headquartered in Rimini, employs 50 people and has a turnover of tens of millions of euros. Thanks to new partners, including CDP Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, it is aiming to expand further in Italy and France, where it has landed with Plages.fr, which has already attracted the membership of more than 30 establishments on the beaches of the French Riviera, including Saint Tropez.
Congratulations to those who invent and bring Italy to the most beautiful beaches in the world.
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