-- Five Questions for Tanya Bencheva-Vigier --
-- An interview for CCI Cote d’Azur --
We at Native Spaces are extremely excited to announce that a week ago we got nominated as company of the week by the chamber of commerce. We have provided below an English translation of the interview that our founder gave for CCI. You can read the original article in French here.
What is Native Spaces? Tell us more about your company.
Native Spaces was created in January 2018 and is based in Nice.
Native Spaces is an online marketplace for people to discover, book and list unique venues for special events and experiences, from birthday dinners and weddings to workshops, board meetings and company off-sites. In addition, we provide a variety of carefully selected event service suppliers to make the planning experience complete.
The Native Spaces online platform allows event organisers, both businesses and individuals, to search through available venues using extensive search criteria to find a perfect place according to their budget, number of guests, amenity requirements, etc. As soon as they find the place they love, they can message the host and/or request a quote, compare the quotes of different hosts as well as confirm the booking and make the payment online. Their event would then also be automatically insured by our partner, AXA.
Though we have just started, we have already developed a network of spaces and we have started working with clients looking to organise company off-sites, presentations, weddings, parties or dinners in unique venues.
What value do you bring to your clients?
Native Spaces created this platform for event organisers to easily discover and book one-of-a-kind spaces while providing hosts with the opportunity to generate additional revenue.
As a marketplace, we do our best to add value to both space owners and event organisers.
For space owners:
- We provide the infrastructure to manage and process reservations online. This means that spaces like museums, galleries, private properties, and others can now host events to generate additional income in times when the space is idle or not used (e.g. in the evening).
- We provide access to an international client base. Since we remunerate ourselves only when there is a booking, our incentives are fully aligned and we do our best to promote all listed spaces via various channels: website, social media, direct approach to our network of corporate contacts, etc. Today, event managers in hotels spend more than 70% of their time looking for new clients, including managing their online communities on social media.
For event organisers:
- We provide access to a set of unique spaces that are usually difficult to access elsewhere.
- We provide a fast, hassle-free booking process, all online, as well as transparent pricing. Event organisers can already browse the spaces on our website, see their prices and availability, message the host, book and pay online.
- Our services are free for event organisers and we ensure transparency as we require all our space hosts to display their prices on our website.
- All events booked via our platform, no matter the country of origin of the event organiser, are insured by AXA, a major international insurer, making the organization of the event faster, easier and cheaper.
Finally, we believe that we bring value to the region by attracting more and more international events to be hosted here and also by helping smaller and less popular spaces as well as event service providers and artisans to get discovered and consequently generate revenue.
What did 2018 represent for you and what are your objectives for Native Spaces in 2019?
2018 represented for Native Spaces a year of growth and development.
We worked to make our marketplace platform a reality by developing the technology behind that powers-up our website while looking to build a network of unique spaces. At this point, our main goal is to launch our platform into the market while we keep on building our growing network of spaces.
In 2019 we’ll continue our business development efforts focusing on our international client base of companies and individuals. It is equally important for us to find and attract outside investment and grow our business by hiring new people for business development / sales, operations & technology development and online marketing.
What type of profiles are you looking to hire for Native Spaces?
We look for people who are motivated, persistent, self-starters, keen to learn and get results. In the following months we’ll be looking to recruit a product manager, team of developers to take our technology to the next levels, and client champions to assist event organisers in any step on our platform.
What is the main priority right now for Native Spaces?
The main priority right now for Native Spaces is to continue improving our technology to reach a superior user experience to answer the needs of a still disintegrated and not so efficient market and at the same time continue building our network of unique spaces and event organisers.