Olmo van Beurden and Hans van Mourik founded together SurfaWhile; a cool booking agency specialised in surf trips. However, it’s not like the traditional ones.
Let’s discover the reason why with Olmo!
Hi Olmo! What is the story behind SurfaWhile?
Hi Irene, nice to meet you. The story of SurfaWhile starts with two different stories, just over 5 years ago. Hans, my co-founder, has a background in Digital Marketing and I myself studied international Business.
Both of us had been surfing on quite some spots around the world but we found out that there was basically no information to be found online for beginning surfers in the Netherlands, where both of us are from.
Questions like: ‘’If I want to learn how to surf, where do I start?’’ or ‘’What would be the best possible surf camp for me?’’ just were not being answered. And that’s where we saw an opportunity.
We knew, obviously, that we had to connect the content-part with a commercial-part, as we did believe that there was a potential business in this concept. In 2011, I did an English language course in Sydney, Australia, and Hans has studied English abroad as well.
Furthermore, as part of his studies, Hans did an internship in Cape Town, where he worked at the marketing department of an English language school. There he found out what is the power of international agencies, as they provide basically all students to the specific language schools.
During his travels around South Africa, he met many people who went to Jeffrey’s Bay (South Africa) to combine learning English with surfing, as J’bay obviously is a great spot for surfing. That’s also how the idea emerged of offering language + surf trips as a commercial side to the surf-blog. And this is how SurfaWhile has started.
Nowadays Surfawhile serves much more as a place to book your surf holiday. Already in the first year, people regarded SurfaWhile as a real surf company, where you would be able to book a surf camp. And as people inquired about surf holidays, SurfaWhile started offering that.
Why is booking through SurfaWhile so great?
We really believe in a number of things and this is exactly, as we believe, what makes booking through SurfaWhile so great: we know, more than anyone, what we are selling, we know all our partners personally and we offer a number of extras that you won’t get when booking directly with the providers.
One of the challenges the surf-camp market was facing, was honest advice. A number of years ago, there were almost no platforms where you could choose between a number of surf accommodations and obviously the accommodations themselves would only advise people in favour of themselves.
That’s where we also saw a huge opportunity. We really believe in maintaining a relatively small number of partners which allows us to know everyone personally. We also know the destinations by heart (we visit all spots once a year, at least the ones within Europe) and we are well up to date of what’s going on in the camps.
In case a specific person inquires about an accommodation which is famous for parties or yoga on the other side, we know where to send you. But this can also be more specific, such as age-related, the vibe/atmosphere, certain activities or the connection between the staff and the guests.
Your platform suits any customer type, like the “Surf + Language travel”. What are the feedbacks from the people who tried it?
Language and surf trips are what we started offering when SurfaWhile was just born.
This is a combination that both Hans and myself are very fond of and the feedback we get from the clients also is very good. In general, learning a language during the morning and having a surf session throughout the afternoon works very well.
The surf lesson, on one hand, serves to ‘empty your mind’. On the other hand, the lessons are generally taught in the language you are learning (all instructors can always switch to English if needed) so students, without noticing, pick up a lot of language skills during the surf lessons.
Another reason why the students like the surf, in particular, is that they really have something to do. They witness fellow students sitting around during the afternoon (after their morning classes), whereas they have the surfing themselves.
Families are amongst your featured trips. Could surf trips be fun also for the parents?
In terms of our surf holidays, we aim at having options for literally anyone. What we’ve seen over the last 3 years is that families get very interested as well in surf holidays and that has a number of reasons.
First of all, these families are, in general, very sporty and the parents are very much looking into joining the surf lessons themselves as well. Furthermore, it’s a great way for parents to convince their kids to still take a holiday altogether.
Also, a number of surf accommodations (which can be easily found on our website, under family-friendly) attracts, during the high season especially, more families so the parents know that they are likely to be meeting like-minded parents of other families.
A little bird told me that you are launching a “drive-in booking”; in this way, customers can book a surf holiday without requiring physical contact…
In the Netherlands, companies started to respond to the coronavirus in numerous ways. Garden centres and flower growers installed drive in's, which came in the news by the end of March. Buying your pots and plants in a safe way (without leaving the car) seemed very appealing
As April Fools came up, we thought it would be a funny joke to ‘pretend’ we would open a drive-in so people could safely book their surf holiday out of their cars.
Sadly, the joke didn’t have the effect we hoped for, as many people thought we would actually open the drive-in.
SurfaWhile has many followers on Social media. How do we keep your community entertained, especially during these tough times?
We have always been investing a lot of time into our social media channels. However, social media also has been something we had to keep up with alongside the ‘regular duties’ and therefore we haven’t always been able to manage it to the extent that we emulated.
During the corona-crisis, it is obvious that pushing some of the accommodations and surf trips we offer won’t be as effective as it would be normally.
Therefore we aim at entertaining our community even more than we normally do. We’ve gathered the lists of best surf movies, stories, documentaries and other stories so that people will receive the greatest content.
Especially as several beaches are closed these days, they can still keep up with their daily surf-addiction.
Business-wise, how do you spend your time efficiently? And on a personal level?
We have to make most out of these days/weeks/months so we are continuously thinking about what we can still improve. And this can certainly be some larger project, as we finally have the time for it.
“How can we provide our customers with more qualitative information about their surf holiday?” and “what can we still improve in terms of the services we provide to our partners?” are questions we can finally really consider.
Also on a personal level I try to invest in the things I would normally be less likely to have the time for. Besides a more extensive fitness and workout schedule, I try to read more and invest time in self-studies more than I used to do.
The Surfpreneurs network is also something I would like to pursue to a greater extent.
What’s your next trip?
I have tickets to visit some of our partners in Portugal during the last 2 weeks of May but I highly doubt whether that’s a trip I can take.
Every summer we visit our partners in France and Spain (by car), but we also need to see what’s going to happen.
If all of that will not be possible, I will surely be visiting Portugal and Spain in September/October, as it will be good to catch up with many of our friends and partners (almost all of them are both!).
Last but not least: tell us a motivation quote you love.
‘Don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you’re done’ is probably a lot of Surfpreneurs can relate to.
Follow SurfaWhile on Istagram: @surfawhile
Interviewed by Irene Vannucci
Human rights enthusiastic, wipe-out lover, and chocolate addict, Irene is collaborating with Surfpreneurs Club as an intern to inspire you with the most exciting ventures in the surf community.
Interviews with surf entrepreneurs
