Zangoa maps rural accommodation in Spain

Finding the right rental accommodation in the right surroundings can be hard, particularly in rural areas, but a new project, Zangoa, plans to change that for rural accommodation in Spain. Zangoa founder and developer Marc Puig explains how in this interview.

What is Zangoa and who is behind the project?

Zangoa is a very innovative search engine for rural tourism, based on maps. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to find rural and ecotourism accommodation and discover its environment (nice villages, museums to visit, restaurants, photos, sights, etc.). The information comes partly from Internet sources like Wikipedia and Panoramio and partly from the points that owners and visitors add to Zangoa in a collaborative way. All these Points of Interest around accommodations, allow travellers to make the right decision when planning their holidays, and help them discover interesting spots to visit.

At this moment the Zangoa team is formed by two web developers and one tourism expert, all of them from Barcelona, and we expect to grow as Zangoa grows.

What inspired you to create Zangoa?

The sum of three factors: I have a web development company, my parents have a nice rural house near Barcelona and I love working with Google Maps.

It started a year ago, experimenting during nights and spare time with Google Maps and their capabilities. As a traveller, I had a particular idea about what I expected from a tourism website, and, at the same time, as a web developer, I wanted to do something useful and new.

I knew very well the functional features that some other web portals about Rural Tourism offered, and I was thinking about something different, something that allowed travellers to find a place to sleep using maps. And, the most important thing, a site that provided them with complete information about the surroundings.

The project started as a personal, professional hobby, but later on we decided to change it into a company product, and now we have something very nice.

What does “zangoa” mean?

The word comes from a basque proverb “non gogoa, han zangoa”, which means “where the mind goes, the legs follow”. We would like to be as useful as a local guide is for travellers and bring them where their mind had gone.

Who should use Zangoa?

Everybody who wants to spent their holidays in a nice place in a natural environment. But Zangoa’s main target is the active traveller, people who combine adventure, culture and ecotourism. People who like to discover nice places with local restaurants, museums, monuments, mountains, etc.

Zangoa goes further than other tourism websites go. Most of them only provide you with information about the accommodation but you don’t have a precise idea about the area you are going to visit. Zangoa helps you to make the right decision thanks to its complementary information.

How much does it cost to use Zangoa?

Everybody can use Zangoa free of charge, and also the owners can list their rural accommodations free of charge. But if an owner wants to offer extended information, with accomodation features, photos, description, show Points Of Interest, etc, they can do it for an annual fee of EUR 52.

Do you have any new features in the pipeline?

Of course, we have a list with a lot of new features, but at this moment we are focused on Zangoa’s marketing. One thing we want to offer soon are embeddable maps with Points of Interest, to be used on the accommodation’s website with a simple copy & paste action.

We are also working hard on translations in languages like French, Italian, Portuguese and German. In fact, a website like Zangoa is never finished.

Note

Anni Poulsen: Zangoa is already available in English and Spanish. Make sure you pay Zangoa a visit if you are looking for rural accommodation in Spain.

TAGS: rural accommodation, Spain, Zangoa

2 Responses to “Zangoa maps rural accommodation in Spain”

1. Juan Otero:

   I believe in Zangoa. I think in it as one of the advances of the rural future

   Congratulations Marc

   Juan
   http://www.juanotero.es

   19 September, 2007 at 13:22
2. Marc:

   Thank you Juan!

   we have worked very hard with on this project and we also hope it will be useful for the rural tourism

   19 September, 2007 at 21:33

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