Experience travelling like a local with Matt Landau on Sense of Place

We were honoured to be selected by holiday rental guru Matt Landau to be featured on his TV show “Sense of Place”. Check out the video and details here.

We were honoured to be selected by holiday rental guru Matt Landau to be featured on his TV show “Sense of Place”. Matt and Vacation Marbella are both passionate about the concept of travelling like a local and enjoying an authentic experience on your holiday. A key component of that is staying in a holiday rental property where you can shop, cook and live like a local.

In this show, you’ll see how our founder Borja enables Matt to experience his Marbella, avoid tourist traps, eat in his favourite places and even meet his family. We hope you enjoy the show and fall in love with Marbella just as much as Matt did.

To give you a bit of background to the show and take you behind the scenes we caught up with Borja and asked him about the experience and why he is so passionate about this new way of travelling.

Hi Borja, thanks for chatting to us today. We love the show, how did you get the opportunity to take part?

Matt Landau is the biggest holiday rentals influencer in the US, I consider him my mentor and we follow his advice to make sure we deliver the best customer experience. He chose us as the only company to feature in Spain because he believes in the future of our company and how we are doing things and was kind enough to shine the spotlight on us and explore Marbella with me.

What was it like doing the show for you?  

I am definitely not an actor and I felt quite strange being in front of the camera, but as a business person you need to grab every opportunity to promote your company so I got over my nerves. It was also an honour and a pleasure to be with Matt, someone who is a mentor, friend and all round great guy! Matt’s mantra is helping people and he does that all around the world, from setting up a non-profit in Panama to helping out one of our team to improve his money management by hiring an expert to give him financial lessons. Once I got over the camera being there it was a great experience and I was really happy to be able to show Matt my Marbella, as I’m very proud of this great place!

Why did you want to show your Marbella to Matt?

We love Marbella and are passionate about it as a great holiday destination all year round. Marbella has an image that it is all about luxury shopping, showing off and bling. It certainly is a great luxury destination, but it is so much more than that and I wanted to show Matt and the world that it can be the perfect holiday destination for all kinds of visitors. As we live here we enjoy the history, gastronomy, culture, sport and laid back lifestyle and I wanted to show Matt this other side of Marbella. Thankfully he loved it as much as we do!

Was there anything you were particularly keen to show him?

I feel very proud of what we’ve achieved with Vacation Marbella and it was lovely to share our ethos with Matt and show how we work. We are a young company, with 15 employees and we try to provide a ¨family flavour”. We are growing fast, but keeping true to our founding principal, so even though we host more than 10,000 guests a year, we still focus on providing a tailored experience where our guests can feel like a local while they are staying with us. That is why we do not only offer accommodation, we offer many other services and local recommendations tailored to each guest. We don’t just focus on luxury, or the most expensive restaurant! We often share recommendations on restaurants where we go with our friends or family, where to have a drink, or who is the best fisherman in town so you can experience fishing for real. Life is about experiences and the people you travel with, or you meet while you’re away, that is what makes the difference for us and what we help guests experience.

Why are you so passionate about the vacation rental industry?

We want to show people this new way of travelling, which we believe adds so much to a holiday experience. This is a booming sector and although it is a relatively young industry here in Spain, there are more holiday rental beds than hotel rooms and the demand is growing fast. As tourism continues to boom and demand is limited, holiday rental accommodation is allowing more people to visit and enjoy their holiday on their terms.

What we love is the flexibility of a vacation rental. If you are travelling with your family or a group of friends, you can cook a meal in the kitchen, enjoy a few beers in the living room or make sure that the food suits your dietary requirements by shopping and cooking for yourself. We’re able to offer luxury, great service and excellent value, while providing activities to make their holiday unforgettable.

How can you help your guests have the same experience Matt had?

We offer a lot more than just accommodation, and have pulled together a network of providers which offer the best experiences around the Costa del Sol. We combine this with personal recommendations and contacts which allow our guests to enjoy the full local experience. To expand this aspect of the business we are planning to hire an Experience Manager from a 5* hotel in Marbella who will help us to provide a better experience while our guests are staying with us. Our aim for 2018 is to improve our service even more to provide an unforgettable vacation.

To discover your Marbella, get in touch with Borja and the team and tell us what your perfect holiday looks like, then let us make it happen! You can also watch the show for our insiders’ tips and advice.

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From Vacation Marbella wants that everyone knows the benefit about staying in Marbella. There are a plenty of activities that you can do with your family, friends or even with you pet. Share the information with everyone and who knows, maybe could join your plans!