Winerist was created to showcase Wine Tourism at its best. Winerist.com is the largest online travel specialist for wine and food tours, with a booking system featuring wineries, wine tours, cooking classes, wine hotels and more. Video and editorial resources, including expert travel guides and the Winerist Magazine, ensure each and every guest enjoys the best up-to-the-minute content alongside access to the world’s leading wine tourism breaks.
The Winerist brand has enjoyed six years of strong growth and has evolved to be the wine travel market leader, transforming the market with unprecedented levels of capability and service. Winerist.com currently showcases 133 Wine Regions, 220 Hotels, 500 Food and Cooking Experiences, 700 Wineries and 1200 Wine Tours, all available for guests to book online. Guests can book now and pay for experiences later with a 24-hour cancellation policy in place, considering current changing travel restrictions.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Winerist was born in beautiful Burgundy, when I took my own wine trip and was struck by how difficult it was to find access to wineries and wine experiences. I would arrive at vineyards which were closed or had very limited opening hours and I could not find anywhere online with all the resources to access not just vineyards but to book tours and find unique places to stay within these vineyards. Building a strong connection between the wine industry and budding wine travellers became my passion and over the last six years, Winerist has become the go-to provider for incredible wine travel experiences all over the world!
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What advice would you give to other aspiring female entrepreneurs?
1. To ensure that you stay true to your values, are moral and fair to yourself and your team. In the early days of your business, it will be tempting to give into various opinions that can affect your core values. As the business grows, remember why you started this. There is no doing business with bad people and there is no harm in saying no. To preserve a good sense of self and to respect who you are is extremely important.
2 .When it comes to your personal life, to look for someone who wants an equal partner. When family comes into play, you will want to be a team rather than having to feel like you are sacrificing something and are struggling to catch up. I remember meeting my now-husband, and how supportive he was from the very start of who I am, my aspirations and my professional plans. Your family has a significant impact on who you become and you have to be certain that this is a partnership for the long run.
3. Don’t ever compare yourself to anyone else and be proud of who you are. I was not born in the UK and English was never my first language. But I used my heritage, my language skills and my background to my advantage. Try to learn from others and strive to be better, but embrace your differences and be proud of them.
Finally, as things get harder, remember that it will take multiple attempts. You must never give up, always ask for help and support other women. They will know your struggles and be there when you need them.
What can we hope to see from Winerist in the future?
Winerist is on track to become the biggest provider of activities in the wine and food space. From offering an all encompassing, easy to book online product to addressing the needs of luxury and corporate clients through our Concierge Service, we are here offering the best and most diverse product. In our sector, we want to revolutionise the market in providing the first technology aimed at wine and food tourism players.
We want to bring players online and we want to do so with the small, family run, medium wineries which don’t have the ability to invest in technology. Our newly developed API is free and it aims to bring wineries into this world where the customer experience has to be seamless, online and the process has to flow perfectly from the confirmation to the payment, refunds and cancellations. We are committed to creating opportunities for our clients and for our partners. This is an industry where you will find some exceptional people on both ends of the experience and as a marketplace, a connecting platform, we want them both to feel like we are looking after their interests.
