The best video repository about Barcelona, Catalonia in general and The Catalans… aiming to show and explain foreign visitors and tourists alike what this small nation is all about.
| My role |  |
| Client | Not-for-profit project |
| Date | 2017 |
| Sector | Tourism |
| Task | Developing a video portal to show to the international audience Catalonia’s diversity as a tourism destination from a different perspective |
| Challenge | Volunteer-based not-for-profit project |
Video has become the number one communication vehicle, because video works and it’s the most effective and efficient way to relay a message about something, a place, an idea, a sensation or an experience. This is the reason why we choose to use this media as the basis of the project.
We believe that websites like Tripadvisor, VirtualTourist and even Facebook are great sites to ask, discuss and get advice from locals and tourists alike but InfoCatalonia is “the” place to understand that advice, by seeing for oneself. It’s certainly the closest you’ll get to the real thing.
What to do, what to see and where to go. We have plenty of beaches, monuments, historical sites, picturesque little towns, breathtaking scenic views, sacred places, high peaks and mountain ranges, ski resorts, old ruins, diverse and unique flora and fauna, beautiful natural parks, one of the world’s best gastronomy, wonderful and warm people, and plenty of sun… and all these within Catalonia, a small territory the size of Belgium or the state of Maryland (US), what else can you ask for?
In early 2017, out of a personal challenge and interest, I gathered a team of enthusiasts about Catalonia, both locals and visitors, in this volunteer-based project.
Once the basics of the project and its mission and vision had been agreed and defined, we developed a set of procedures to scout the Internet for contents that could potentially become part of our library.
We excluded those that did not seem to fit the criteria of being relevant to the issue at hand and be relatively short (clips), be either in English, subtitled in English or be self-explanatory and have a certain level of quality both in technical terms -trying to avoid too amateurish videos- as well as content-wise. We also excluded all copyrighted material -to the best of our abilities.
Visit www.infocatalonia.eu
InfoCatalonia is A FREE non-official and non-commercial site, with all its contents, gathered from public sources and credited to their respective authors and are displayed for the information and convenience of the public, and do not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or favouring by InfoCatalonia.eu
The result is a portal with 500+ videos displaying a range of sites, places and activities a visitor can do in Catalonia, from a visit to the “typical” sites (ie. Sagrada Família, the beaches in Costa Brava or the abbey of Montserrat) to less known activities, such as visiting the mussels’ farms at the delta of the Ebre river or enjoying typical Catalan traditions and heritage events such as Festes Majors, La Patum de Berga or Verge’s medieval Dance of the Death among many others.
This has been an exercise of communication and marketing “just because”, just for fun, with no other aim than displaying Catalonia to the world from the point-of-view of Catalan nationals and frequent visitors seeking a different perspective than that more “touristy” often shown by the major travel guides and tourism boards.
Each of the volunteers has promoted the site in his/her ‘circles’ (forums and other tourism-related websites) and the current figures show an accumulated 40,000+ users and 134,000+ page views since its inception in 2017.
At present (2020), we continue to curate the website and we’re working on a complete revamp sometime later this year.
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