Who we are, where do we come from and where do we go?

At Naturaki we are a team of people dedicated to managing rural and charming houses in Girona and Costa Brava area.

With passion, effort and energy, our goal is to professionalize the management of holiday accommodation, incorporating four key elements: technology, marketing, the best customer service and the best attention to the owners. Naturaki is a young and consolidated company that was founded in 2011 and we have not stopped innovating in the sector. Year after year we are renewing and increasing the houses managed and currently we manage 101 exclusively. Over these years we have hosted more than 223.700 people, we have more than 14.800 real opinions with an average valuation of 9.5 and 40% of repeating customers. Our goal is that Naturaki's houses are a second home for those staying there, and it is also for those who work with us betting on stable and long-term relationships. We value the experience after years of work together with the owners and also with the people who work on the team. Over the next few years we are still waiting for you very intense and with many new features. The range of options is wide, from being able to extend Naturaki to other territories and continue to take more housing, to entering new sectors. In any case, our goal will always remain the same: "to make your stay an unforgettable experience".

Thank you very much for your confidence!

The origins of Naturaki go back years. Naturaki is the set of a series of "coincidences" and the result of a great effort and desire to move on.

Formally, the company was formed on January 25th, 2011, although the embryo had been brewing for years. Founded by Narcís and Carme: brothers, friends and partners. From an early age, they share a very curious passion: going to see houses, admiring them and observing all their details. Narcís had planned to study architecture or interior design and Carme had dedicated herself to sales or tourism, but the paths led them to live other life experiences until they reached Naturaki.

Narcís, since 2001 has been working on websites through comexus.net where his speciality was rural tourism. He always complained about the same thing: "rural tourism needs to professionalize". The business worked and in 2007 he finished building a house to live in, but he was there for a short time. He had it closed for a while longer, and as the crisis deepened he began to rent it occasionally as a holiday rental. Rural tourism customers complained that with the crisis their reservations had dropped a lot and that the website service was too expensive. So, to some of them -once Naturaki was already created- he proposed that instead of paying for the website, he would take care of managing the reservations and charge a commission only based on the sales that were able to generate.

At the same time, Carme was working in the hotel sector on the Costa Brava for a few summers, enjoying and learning how to deal with people when they went on holiday and seeing their needs. She always repeated herself: “the client is on holiday enjoying his limited free time and we are lucky that he has chosen our hotel to stay. Making their experience unique is, in part, my responsibility". After that and combining it with her degree, she was two years working as a commercial in the sector of the hotel trade acquiring an ample experience in the negotiation, loyalty of clients and attention to the suppliers. With this combination, Carme was able to better understand the needs of both the end customer and the suppliers. During the summer of 2010 she was managing reservations as she prepared to embark on an intense trip to Asia that she had long planned, with a one way ticket.

Already in Catalonia, after a meeting between the two on them, a December afternoon at the Terra bar in Girona, they agreed that, after Christmas holidays, they would create the company and start working together.

In 2021, at Naturaki we celebrated our first 10 years and in this post we explain them in detail. In 10 years Naturaki, starting from scratch and fully self-financed through the reinvestment of profits, has become the leading company in Catalonia in the number of holiday homes managed exclusively in the rural world. Currently focused on Girona and the Costa Brava area, but with the aim of establishing itself throughout Catalonia in the coming years.

After an extremely complex 2020 due to Covid and the negative effects it has had on the company and the entire sector, in 2021 we celebrated 10 years with more houses than ever and the best satisfaction of all our times by of customers.

2020 put our company to the test and values such as patience, humility, know-how and resilience, already common in Naturaki, became more present than ever. This has allowed us to take the worst crisis in history in tourism as an opportunity to improve processes, be more orderly, efficient and, above all, more humane.

During the next 10 years the will is to continue growing in number of houses and expand the territory in which we work. But our priority is, above all, to continue to generate happiness and good times for all the people who are part of the project, be they customers, employees, suppliers, partners and collaborators. In short: to be able to enjoy the road while we strive to recover the heritage and life in the rural world.

From our beginning,  we have been very active in the world of entrepreneurship in Girona and Catalonia. They have set an example for us and we have also set an example. The biggest recognition we have is the continued increase in repeat customers, the number of owners who continue to trust us year after year, and the stability it gives us over the years that we work with our team.

Externally, over the years, we have received awards and recognitions and participated in numerous entrepreneurship and promotion programs in our territory. Some of the highlights are:

• 2011. Chosen to participate in the first edition of Yuzz aimed at promoting and talenting young entrepreneurs.
• 2013. Chosen to participate in the first edition of the Start-Up Catalonia program. Focused on Catalan companies with special projection.
• 2014. Award for the best digital marketing initiative in Girona at the e-tech awards.
• 2014. Finalists in the emerging ICT company award for e-tech awards.
• 2015. Award for the best website of the 2015 Cactus Awards. Fruit of the second version of our website.
• 2015. Chosen by the program 'Support for business activity' of the Diputació de Girona aimed at promoting the projects of 14 innovative or technology-based companies in Girona.
• 2017. Finalists for best accommodation for the Vilafreser Loft in the Holiday Home Award 2017 competition organized by the EHHA in the category Best Health and Wellness Holiday Home 2017 in Europe.
• 2018. Award for the best sustainable villa for the Caseta del Mar of the Girona Awards for Apartments and Holiday Villas.
• 2019: Award for the best tourist apartment addapted to sports tourism for Can Pardal and for the best sustainable villa for El Portaló de Cantallops of the Girona Awards for Apartments and Holiday Villas.
• 2021. Participation in the UNWTO (World Tourism Organization) world competition for rural tourism startups. Video presentation (in English).
• 2021. Award for the best website of the 2021 Cactus Awards. Fruit of the third version of our website.
• 2021. Award for the best sustainable villa for the Caseta de Fusta of the Girona Awards for Apartments and Holiday Villas.
• 2021. Award for the best tourist accommodation in architecture and design for La Vila Monells of the Girona Awards for Apartments and Holiday Villas.
• 2022. Award for the best tourist accommodation in rustic architecture and design for Can Dalmau de Vila-Sacra of the Girona Awards for Apartments and Holiday Villas.
• 2022. Award for the best tourist accommodation in inland and the Pyrenean villages for Mas Puget Dalt of the Girona Awards for Apartments and Holiday Villas.

Additionally, every year we do multiple presentations and interviews talking about entrepreneurship and business in different areas. In addition, every year we go to the UdG to give lectures on entrepreneurship.

Since 2019 the main event we organize every year is the "Annual Owners Meeting". Every spring we bring together more than 100 owners and take the opportunity to reflect on how the year has gone, how we see the next ones and deal with a specific issue related to the sector. In the words of the owners; "It's a great opportunity to meet all of us, share experiences, doubts and concerns. It's a good time to face everyone and relate beyond the web, the phone and the emails ". Before we start, we all have breakfast together and when it is over we invite a big lunch to all the owners, which lasts until well into the middle of the afternoon.

It has only been possible to go all this way thanks to a group of extraordinary people who are part of or have been part of a work team of unsurpassed quality. A team known internally by the key name of ‘Dream Team’.

The team was initially formed only by Carme and Narcís, but since 2012 it has increased in number of people until 2021 to 13 direct jobs and more than 200 collaborators between owners, people who they prepare the accommodations and operators who carry out the maintenance.

If you want to be part of our 'Dream Team', send us your CV and tell us what you can contribute.

Photo: The office team doing a team building at the end of the summer season looking for dragon balls in Vilademuls. September 2022.

Photo: Team building of the office team at the beginning of the summer season at Humor Amarillo Park. June 2022.

Photo: The office team doing a team building at the end of the summer season in an Escape Room. September 2021.