Like the words in Carlos Gardel’s tango Volver, when he looks back and reminisces about his first love, this year, the editorial team at GRUPO TOUR MAGAZINE is feeling emotional.
The first issue of Gipuzkoa Tour – as it was known back then – was distributed in 3, 4 and 5-star hotels in San Sebastian and Gipuzkoa the first week of July 1998. To put it in context, the Kursaal Convention Centre hadn’t been built. It opened the following year, in 1999. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao had only been open for two years.
While similar tourist magazines existed in other parts of the world, back then, they were still a novelty here. We’ll never forget the look of surprise on the receptionists’ faces as we marched in, laden down with cardboard boxes full of magazines. We were politely informed that deliveries should be left in the store-room. We were even asked once to leave them in the kitchen, next to the non-perishables!
It is now 20 years later and we have just launched the second issue of La Rioja Tour Magazine (formerly La Rioja Tour), the latest GRUPO TOUR MAGAZINE publication, which can be found in hotels all over Rioja. We are constantly looking for new ideas.
Bizkaia Tour came out in 2011, Navarra Tour in 2004, Pays Basque Tour in 2011, and Cantabria Tour in 2013.
Thank you to all the people who believed in the project and supported us in what was initially no more than a hazy idea, and thanks too to those who didn’t come aboard, their refusal made us much stronger.
As in any other company, the magazine would never reach the hotel guest rooms if it weren’t for our excellent team (editorial staff, designers, layout, photographers, translators, advertising department, distributors, printers, administration, etc.), whose day-to-day work and commitment ensures that the quality of the GRUPO TOUR MAGAZINE publications is constantly improved and that visitors get to see their holiday destination in the best possible light.
As the song goes: “Volver, con la frente marchita…Las nieves del tiempo platearon mi sien.” [“Returning, with wrinkles on my forehead, the snows of time have silvered my brow”]
