ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

This section is designed to let the Andalucia.com community know about any improvements or alterations to the forums and to post questions and comments about the forums themselves.
User avatar
andalucia
Site Admin
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 3:42 pm
Location: Andalucia

ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby andalucia » Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:58 pm

Press Release

Andalucia.com, the most highly visited and longest established website about southern Spain, is celebrating its 20th anniversary on 17th April 2016.

The anniversary will be marked by a 'Treasure Hunt' in Estepona and Casares. Look out for #20andaluciacom on social media.

Twenty years ago, the Internet barely existed in people's lives. Businesses showed little interest and it was only the field of a few academics and techies could forsee the future world with universal Internet access. Even Yahoo! could only return 56 pages on Spain, and the category Andalucía didn't even exist.

Chris Chaplow, a former Civil Engineer from Stockport, Cheshire, moved to Spain in 1991. He founded Andalucia.com because he saw the need for an online reference guide to Andalucía. He was able to call on the thousands of images of Andalucia from his partner Michelle Chaplow's photographic archive, the 'Andalucia Slide Library'.

The project started as a 'labour of love' from Chris' home office. The key to early website success was in the mission to 'offer clear useful information about Andalucia for the international traveler, tourist and resident'

By the late nineties there was lots of competition but after the dot com boom "Competitors lost interest because advertising revenue wasn't forthcoming. Knowing that you can't have advertising without circulation, it was a question of just keeping going. Collecting information by exploring Andalucía at weekends was not exactly a hardship, anyway!" smiles Chris.

We were honoured to receive the inaugural 'Business of the Year Award' in 2008 from CADE in Marbella, a business support agency of the Junta de Andalucia.

Andalucia.com continues to grow and now has 10,000 plus pages of information and receives half a million visitors each month with one and a half million pages read. It is the most visited website in English providing information on Spain.

Thousands of people have been inspired to visit Andalucía after visiting the site.

Chris Chaplow says "None of this would have been possible without the loyalty of our visitors, customers and staff, to whom we are extremely grateful. We're very proud of our success. There is no secret recipe, just hard work, long hours and a frantic determination to keep adding more and more information, and returning to improve and enhance the existing content even when not commercially viable. We're here to stay and very much looking forward to the next 20 years."

User avatar
costakid
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 5754
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:55 am
Location: malaga este

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby costakid » Sat Apr 16, 2016 2:45 pm

congrats.

maureenscot
Resident
Posts: 666
Joined: Mon Jan 25, 2016 5:37 pm

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby maureenscot » Sat Apr 16, 2016 5:11 pm

Congratulations and Thank You

User avatar
country boy
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 2829
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2004 9:49 pm
Location: U.K. (prev Pizarra 2000/2020).

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby country boy » Sat Apr 16, 2016 7:10 pm

I think you should be darn well proud of yourselves. It really is a most informative and superbly non aligned site, also, the forum is fun and well regulated. Cheers...well done you! Here's to the next 20.

User avatar
concorde
Resident
Posts: 1588
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:52 am
Location: UK

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby concorde » Sun Apr 17, 2016 11:45 pm

Many congratulations and many thanks.
Lots of brilliant info given by many to many.
Long may it continue.

BENIDORM
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 3982
Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:15 pm
Location: Granada Province

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby BENIDORM » Mon Apr 18, 2016 4:05 pm

As the only representatives of the A.Com Forum attending the 20 years celebration on Sunday 17th April we set off from our home in the 'early hours', it was dark and raining heavily .
By the time we reached Estepona it was light and the rain had stopped and as we pulled into the seafront car park we were pleased to see the large A.Com signs welcoming the guests to the celebrations.
I parked our car and swung open the door to be greeted by a 20 euro note lying on the ground, my first thoughts were 'Are the streets of Estepona Paved with Gold' ?.
Well , my lucky find was a Good Omen about the great day ahead of us.!
From the car park we were quickly whisked away in the waiting bus to the Cafe Vitin situated in the Plaza de las flores where we were able to meet up again with Chris and Michelle Chaplow and the wonderful and helpful crew of Andalucia.com.
We were quite hungry after our car journey so the first class breakfast provided for us and served quickly by the friendly staff of the 'Vitin' was most enjoyable and welcome.
And whilst sat enjoying our breakfast we were able to chat to many of the other guests, and what delightful and interesting people they were !

So then after we had been given name tags ( just in case we forgot who we were )and allocated with stick-on coloured plant pot labels we set off in little groups of 3 or 4 on the 'Treasure Hunt' and following the clues we trekked around Estepona for an hour or so busily scribbling in our intelligent answers to the questions on to the form provided ( even supplied with a clip board and pen ).. very clever and thoughtful people the A.Comers are.!!
What good fun it was and a really good way of discovering all of the interesting history of Estepona, and during the trek we were constantly filmed and photographed by the 'lurking' crew of our hosts who seemed to pop up in the most unlikely places.

When we had completed the Treasure Hunt Route we were greeted by a rather biblical looking character who kept plying us with bottles of water from a large wicker basket, then we were collected by the bus and we sped off into the surrounding countryside to the Necropolis Dolmenica de Corominas Museum where we were given a very good and informed tour by the resident archaeologist Victoria Infante...
This Museum is well worthy of a visit if you are in the area, although you do have to book by telephone ( English spoken ), and there are some great picnic areas and walks in the area.

So, now we took our seats to listen and watch the presentation given by Chris Chaplow in which he talked and showed slides of the history of Andalucia.com ,including some quite early photos from the last century of Chris ( he hasn't changed ), in fact I suspect that the suit he was wearing in the '80's photos was the same suit that he was wearing at the presentation...only kidding !
It was really interesting to see how A.com has evolved and where it is going....Watch this space , I think A.Com has a great future, and all credit to the very hardworking Chris and Michelle Chaplow and the Team....

After the presentation we then boarded the bus and carried on to the delightful but very hilly Casares Village where we continued with another Treasure Hunt, and by the time we reached the top of the village we were quite exhausted especially as I had to carry Pauline on my back for the last 100 metres, no wonder my poor old knees are giving up..!!
And of course we didn't escape the rain when the heavens opened with quite a downpour,but luckily my ex-Girl Guide wife produced an umbrella and saved the day.!
Anyway again it was a very interesting and entertaining tour of Casares and Chris and Michelle kept appearing on the route to see if we were OK ( I think they must have been cloned due to the amount of times we saw them ! )
And now after another short bus ride and feeling quite weary and hungry..and Thirsty we arrived at the Venta Garcia Restaurant, and what a treat was in-store for us all..
For the next few hours we were plied with plenty of drinks of our choice ( for me just sin alchol beer, although Pauline kept teasing me about how excellent the red wine was ), and there was a constant delivery of absolutely 'spiffing' tapas, simply Gourmelicious..wow I've invented a new word....
And then sadly the day was coming to an end and after the presentation of some excellent prizes to the winners of the quiz, which I'm not going into detail...because we didn't win....only jesting...we had a glass of Cava and a piece of the A.Com Birthday cake..very enjoyable.!

And then as we made our way to the bus for our return journey Chris and Michelle and Christopher Wawn presented each of us with a copy of the book 'In Search of Andalucia, an excellent book and a very fitting and welcome gift after a very memorable day.

Many Thanks to Chris and Michelle and all of the other lovely people involved with making this a very memorable and interesting day...

Best Wishes and Good Luck For The Future.
Gordon and Pauline Holme ( Mr.Mrs.Benidorm )

User avatar
andalucia
Site Admin
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 3:42 pm
Location: Andalucia

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby andalucia » Mon Apr 18, 2016 11:47 pm

Benidorm,

Thanks for the kind words, we are delighted that you had a good time. You were the perfect ambassadors for the forum.

Members will be interested this Estepona TV news clip where Benidorm takes a particularly keen interest in the fountain.
http://www.andalucia.com/20andaluciacom

and an interview in El Mundo newspaper.
http://www.elmundo.es/andalucia/malaga/ ... b4588.html

BENIDORM
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 3982
Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:15 pm
Location: Granada Province

Re: ANDALUCIA.COM WAS FOUNDED ON 17 APRIL 1996 CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS

Postby BENIDORM » Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:30 am

It was very interesting to note that the quiz questions for Estepona and Casares have now been added on to the A.Com homepage.
So if you are visiting either of these locations I would really recommend that you download them, even as a very good way to find and locate items of interest that you may otherwise miss.
Regards,
Gordon


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests