15 years of Toscana Forum

From the IT industry to tourism – a small success story

In December 2004, Elisa Santoni registered her travel agency with the district administration department in Munich. Just in time for the New Year's Eve party, the office confirmed December 31.12.2004, 32 as the official start of operations! Toscana Forum is without a doubt a very special and extraordinary Christmas and New Year gift for her! The native Italian had previously worked with heart and soul as a marketing and project manager in the IT and AI (artificial intelligence) industry and was particularly responsible for speech recognition, search engine optimization, website programming and relational databases. But after the construction of her holiday home in her home town of Terricciola was delayed and she had to find other holiday homes for guests who had already booked, the idea of ​​opening an online travel agency was almost a logical consequence. “I was heavily pregnant and I thought to myself that tourism would be a more pleasant industry for an expectant mother,” remembers the then XNUMX-year-old. “And that’s how it was!”

Jump into a fascinating industry

The young entrepreneur experiences the first few months as a “challenge” and a jump into an exciting, fascinating and emotionally rich industry. With the World Wide Web as the main advertising channel, home office and mobile office, she is a real pioneer in tourism as a career changer. After completing her studies in computational linguistics and computer science at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, she easily managed to bring the still young company to the top of Google's search results relatively quickly. The small Toscana Forum is slowly gaining momentum because the guests appreciate Elisa Santoni's good and comprehensive advice, which is characterized on the one hand by her love for her homeland. On the other hand, she really knows every holiday home she offers and maintains close, personal contact with the landlords.

A website honoring Medea

In honor of her dog Medea, who stayed at home with her parents in Tuscany, the website “Tuscany with dog“ at the start, with selected holiday properties where four-legged friends are welcome. The company becomes a member of the Alliance of Independent Travel Companies – Bundesverband eV (asr), the industry representative for medium-sized tourism. A year later, websites for follow Holidays in Sardinia and Sicily as well as a relaunch of the website that has existed since 2002 for the company's own "Holiday Home In Tuscany“. Since things are starting to get tight in the home office, Elisa Santoni rents her first office in May 2008. Husband Davide Azzaroni joined his wife's travel agency full-time in 2015 - after initially enthusiastically working with him. “Without him,” says Elisa Santoni, “the whole enterprise, tailor-made for a family that now has two children, would not have been possible! And what’s more, Davide feels completely in his element at Toscana Forum.”

Stories from Tuscany

This is also possible in 2016 Tuscany Journal with professional articles from Tuscany and news from the company online. The project is supported on various social media channels such as Facebook and youtube  with considerable success with the online community.

Representative office in Terricciola

In 2017 the move to new office space in Unterföhring on the outskirts of Munich took place. At the same time there was another innovation: During the holiday season, holidaymakers can find Davide Azzaroni in the Office in Terricciola a direct contact person on site - a service that is highly valued by guests and from which many other companies have long since withdrawn due to cost reasons.

Official recognition

In 2018, recognition came from the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Media, Energy and Technology Award Service quality Germany, which Elisa Santoni is particularly pleased about. With the new responsive website that will go online for Toscana Forum in September 2019, the company is now also prepared for the mobile age.

Tuscany Forum hands-on

Large and medium-sized companies in the tourism industry are now at the forefront of the World Wide Web and Toscana Forum as a micro-enterprise is once again reacting differently than the mainstream. While many companies in the industry are increasingly saying goodbye to travel trade fairs, Elisa Santoni has discovered the large tourism exhibitions for her company and expanded them into an additional commercial mainstay. Whether the “ITB” in Berlin, the Reisen in Hamburg, the “f.re.e” in Munich, the “CT” in Leipzig, the “CMT” in Stuttgart or the “Freizeit” in Nuremberg – this happens at the trade fairs company received great interest from visitors. Elisa Santoni can rely on the partnership with the “Ivo de Carneri” high school for tourism in Trentino Alto Adige. Thanks to the cooperation, students from Italy not only have the opportunity to Internships abroad at Toscana Forum, and at the same time the work at the trade fair stand is a welcome opportunity for young people to deepen their German language skills.

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Personal thank you

From the very beginning, a common thread runs through the company: it is the company boss's wish to present and experience her homeland as personally, authentically and in detail as possible. She is using the company's 15th anniversary as an opportunity to say a very personal thank you:

• We would like to thank you for the trust and recognition of our loyal regular customers who, right from the start, have repeatedly booked their Tuscany, Sicily or Sardinia holidays through us and recommended us to others.
• We are pleased about the recognition of travel guides such as Dumont or GEO, who praise our services in every issue or mention us as Tuscany specialists.
• A special thank you goes to our employees Christiane and Rosalba, who have been actively supporting us for years and have long since become good friends.
• We would like to thank our long-standing business partners, service providers and suppliers who have contributed significantly to the company's success.

But the greatest recognition goes to her husband, their two sons Alessandro and Matteo, parents and grandparents in Italy as well as the friends all over Europe who have always encouraged and supported her with love: “Without all of you, we would not be where we are today are. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”