All The Angles Padel Business Podcast S2 E10: Focus on Padel Travel & Tourism

Perhaps the only thing better than playing padel is playing padel in a beautiful and inspiring environment.

Travelling for padel is becoming a big business so we decided to get a better understanding on the state of the sector and what the path ahead looks like.

From the resorts and destinations part, we have Tom Bergqvist of Croatia's beautiful Padel Solta alongside Guillermo Del Grosso, the Operations & Events Director from the world famous Nueva Alcantara Club in Malaga. Joining them, are two entrepreneurs from the padel travel agency part: Alessandro Di Stefano, who set up Padel Travel in 2018, and Fabio Zecchini, who launched Weebora last year.

If you are looking to understand this part of the padel industry, then look and listen no further.

#padel #padelbiz #padelbusiness #padeltravel #padeltourism #padelholiday #sportsbiz #sportbusiness #racquetsports #padeldestinations

Transcript

Introduction

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 0:05

Ladies and gentlemen, Damas Caballeros. Thank you for joining us for another episode of All the Angles, the Business of padel podcast worldwide powered by the Hexagon Cup. This week, our focus is on the padel travel and padel tourism industry. I'm joined this episode by a number of high profile and groundbreaking individuals who understand this space incredibly well. First of all, we have Guillermo Del Grosso, who is the operations and events director at Neva Alcantara Club in Malaga. He's been involved in sports and racket sports facilities in Spain since 2004. We also have Alessandro Di Stefano from padel Travel. He's the founder and CEO of padel Travel since 2018, and is also a consultant for the development and launch of new clubs around the world. Thirdly, we have Fabio Zecchini. He is a startup advisor. He was the co-founder and CTO and CPO at amusement since 2012 and is currently the Chief Customer Growth officer@lastminute.com, as well as of course, the founder since last year of Weebora, who are also the official travel partner of both the FIP and Premier padel. Finally, we have Tom Bergqvist who launched the padel Resort padel Solta near split in Croatia around 2022. He's been a recruitment specialist in Scandinavia, owning Move up since 2001. So thank you all for joining us for this episode. Before we get started, if you enjoy this episode or have benefited from previous ones, please share, subscribe. It really does help. So

Breaking Down Padel Tourist Types

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 1:43

without further ado, let's get started. So I think my first question is really differentiating different types of padel holidays. And the way I see it are that there are two broad categories. Obviously, correct me if I'm wrong. The first one is what I would call the hardcore break, which is where participants they wanna play a lot, they ideally wanna be coached by the best coaches or academies. So my example here would be someone attending a week long course at M three Academy in an all-inclusive kind of, I want to level up trip. That's kind of what I call the hardcore holiday. The second is the lifestyle break, which is where the participants maybe want a beautiful hotel or resort or villa, but they also want to play padel daily. And maybe even they wanna be coached as well. To have that baked into the experience. They want swimming pools, beaches, maybe even a chef. They wanna put their feet up. But part of the relaxation for them is easy or even competitive two or so hours of padel. So my question to this group, is that a fair way to simplify the padel tourists or are there other types and species that I've missed?

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 2:52

well, I think if we are talking about active players, I think your split works. Basically, we can divide the two main categories between those who travel full padel with everything else as as a bonus. And those who travel for tourism basically. But just wanna add some they love padel and they want add some sporting activity during their journey that start with other purpose. My easy and fun way to just split the two categories is ask if they bring their own racket. Usually the ones who go for an intensive course, they never just let their weapon at home. So the ones who would just rent one on site probably are the lifestyle breaker.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 3:44

Okay. Any anyone want to add to that? Fabio, I saw you nodding.

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 3:48

Maybe, yeah I can add. I completely agree with with Alessandro. In reality, what I think there is also another angle that is a player or not, related to the tournament and event. Because what we see right now is a lot of people that are traveling because of one event, and they want to combine also the playing part during entertainment event. This is unique, especially for this sport. Because if I'm going to see a soccer match, a football match, maybe I don't want to play soccer in the morning. If I go to see a premier padel in Paris then the day after, I'm starving for playing on the court because I see the champions. I want to do the same. On top of that, I think more and more, this is becoming one of the reason of for traveling. Because it's one of my passion is not just a sport. So I'm going to Paris, not just for visiting Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, but I'll wait maybe for the Roland Garros major, the Paris major. I want to be there during the tournament. And then I go into also the other touristic attraction and experiences. So this is another angle that is becoming more and more important. Plus we have the corporate event. That is another angle, but I'm sure that Tom know better than me about the corporate event.

Hardcore Padel Breaks

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 5:17

Okay, let's start with the first two and we'll come back to the tournament a little bit later. So let's start off with these hardcore, I'm bringing my own weapon as Alessandro put it, holiday makers and I think Guillermo you'll probably be able to speak a little bit to that considering the NAC Club in Malaga is quite renowned for its facilities, multiple courts, and of course incredible coaching facilities and resources. When you're looking at the hardcore break, as I call it, what in your experience are the fundamental components of that break? But also what are the extras that can really make the difference when people book those types of tricks? What's essential and what's bonus?

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 5:57

Okay. In both case, it is usually a double day activities. Depending of the level of the player. The best train is not only learning exercises, but also game situations and matches, especially with local players. They help the foreign players to compete with players of high level and not their usual matches. But the destination for us is very important. And if it is combined by good weather and the beach -in this case is we are 300 meter of the beach. So much is better. In our case what is the more important is experience. From the moment of arrival, the special treatment of the concierge services and the reception, the development of the teaching program, the gastronomic experience or the relaxation option available to each player. For the reason it not only one reason: is a total experience. At the moment to start the course until that you finish our experience.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 7:07

And just building on that, maybe Alessandra or Fabio you can talk to it. So do you get people who say that for me, the essential is the coaching. I want the coach to be fantastic. I don't care whether the club has got a sauna or a jacuzzi. I want it to be basic and simple because I'm so focused on what happens on the court. Everything else is just distraction. But also you have other people who are like, I absolutely expect, the sauna, the whirlpool, the steam room, the, massage therapist. Do you see that full range of expectation when you offer things to your clients?

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 7:44

I think that a key point for the hardcore breaker is meeting expectation. The main point is understand who is in front of you. Because it's a very different customer in comparison with the yearly academy student. Okay? So this is a very key point and usually who wanna do just a hardcore week usually is looking for high level coaching. All the other, I would say that facilities, video analysis, training session are extra elements that help this customer feels like a pro. They usually wanna do an intensive course. And it's a bit funny because usually if we think about other sports, maybe tennis, just not to go farther who is looking for high performance training or intensive week is usually people in good fit and young. But padel has this special feeling that doesn't matter, regardless their age and level, even people in their 40 50, has this feeling that they can get better and better. So even just people with a like competitive mindset can join an intensive week.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 9:08

Fabio, do you have these same experience. You have people who say, I don't want all the bells and whistles. I want a very Spartan package.

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 9:15

yeah. No I think there are also on hardcore player, there are some differentiation. Because, for example, sometime it really start at the beginning also deciding the destination and maybe sometime also the academy and the coaches. So we have customer that they want to train with Gustavo Pratto They want to be Valladolid or in other academies trained by their coaches because they want to have this train like a pro experience .And they don't care anything about flight, hotel, accommodation, tourist experiences, et cetera. and because sometime these are semi-professional players, but there are also some standard player that are starting the beginning of the training course in padel. For example, I can tell you the story. We were in Miami during the premier padel and we were playing in one court with these women. They were complaining because they were saying to us we are going to go in Sardinia in the south of Sardinia playing this summer. But they were complaining because the program was just in the morning, four hours. So what I'm going to do for the other rest of the day in Sardinia. So they don't want to go to the beach. They just want to play. And they were super amateur, just couple of years playing. I wouldn't call these hardcore players, but still for them was super important playing eight hour per day. So for example, in NAC it's super nice so the fact that they are organizing you, the training course in the morning and in the afternoon. Tournament across all the different customers. I think every customer nowadays is super, super different and we need to try to find a balance between and to match their expectation. That is not easy because everyone is is different.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 11:17

And what locations or geographies do really well for these kinds of holidays? Are they all Spain or Nothing? Are they, I want Malaga or Barcelona, Madrid, or Valladolid. I'm not interested in anything else because those are the places I've heard of. That's where the best people are. That's where the guys who are sitting on the benches in the matches that's where their academies are advertised. I'm not gonna accept anything else. Or actually, is it quite a broad geographical spread?

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 11:43

Yeah. Of course for this kind of customer, there is a big preference for Spain and Argentina. Of course. But more than this, the destination, I think these are, as I was saying at the beginning, interested into the coaches, program and academys. So that's why, for example, one of the angle we are working is taking coaches from one important academy, bringing to a different destination like a resort or some nice building where they can train and have some facilities. So this is important also for the academies because we know that, for example, maybe in certain period of the years, August is difficult to play padel in Madrid outdoor, for example, no?. So maybe it's better to bring these coaches or the academy entirely in a different destination that is more, feasible for the standard player, let's say. My point is still a lot of demand for Spain, Argentina as well, but for this if we're able to propose something different, they open to join if there is the quality of the coaches and the methodology super, super high.

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 13:05

I talk about the destination because obviously we are club. And a club is only one. But in our experience the best package is basically in 10 or 12 hours, double season shift and then morning training or afternoon matches. But in our case, Marbella is a big brand, important brand. And all Scandinavian countries and foreign people like UK, or Germany take Spain way of life or sunny days. And it's all combined. Practice, learning, uh. matches and all experience. For this reason we talk about only Marbella. But I think it's the market is growing and the climate is very important. Because the sunny days is a good idea.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 14:02

And Guillermo with your offers at NAC. So as you said, NAC is just one club, but do you have different tiers and types of packages available for people who want to come to NAC? So some people will say, I want the best coach, but I don't care about the hotel, I don't care about the food quality. Whereas other people will say, I want the NAC experience, but I want premium food, premium hotel. So is there a range of different products that even one location offers?

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 14:28

Yes. Maybe in some case we offer a package, complete package with the accommodation and sports. But in our experience we have 18 official academy coaches. And for us it's more important the experience and the level of the people To best learn as possible. But I think our experience is prime experience. We have many people that want to stay two or three days at luxury hotels or depends of the quote about another groups to stay in apartments near here, and then for this reason, the more important for us is the level of the people and do the best courses. And then the facilities is important. But, when you combine all the level, the practice, the matches and the facilities. And combine with the Marbella brand: is a good option.

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 15:31

Regarding the destination, I think that what we have seen, we offer, for instance, this Croatia as a very new destination for padel. People probably don't even know that there are padel courts in Croatia already. But there is we see slightly that many people, they are so used to going to Spain and especially the hardcore players, they have been in Spain many times. They go every year probably with a group of friends. And there haven't been many options since all the coaches, they prefer being in Spain and they have been able to be in Spain because everyone comes there. But I see also when I speak to different academies and padel coaches, you and I have talked Alessandro as well, coaches also they wanna come outside of Spain to gain new experiences, to meet new people. And so I think it will come actually many more potential destinations. Fabio you will see as well, probably in your platform. The problem has, been the coaches. We don't have, we cannot easily find coaches here, so we must bring them from Spain or Argentina or some are already living in Europe. Other parts of Europe, of course.

Lifestyle Padel Breaks

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 16:54

And Tom I was gonna come to you anyway to start talking about these lifestyle break people. So we've talked a little bit about the hardcore. I wanna talk a little bit about the lifestyle. So can you talk a little bit about what are the fundamental requirements of the lifestyle break customer? And what are the extras that are less important? 'cause I'm trying to understand the difference between the two

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 17:14

you can use your introduction and saying also for this leisure travelers, there are hardcore leisure travelers, as you also said there. And there are those who, okay, it's nice to have a padel court. We can play an hour of padel at night if we want. So I think most of them when they choose the destination where you can actually play a lot of padel, they usually wanna play quite a lot, what we have seen. So many hours of the day. But maybe they are not so dependent on a specifically high profile coach. So it can be like, maybe not me, but my son, a decent coach, quite well educated as a coach, but not as in your place, Guillermo and Alessandro, what you offer, of course. Some coaching and many hours a day. And then we have the other one who is not the hardcore leisurer travelers. They just want maybe no coaching. They can play for fun with their family and or friends a few hours a day.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 18:23

And what do people expect in terms of the facilities? For somewhere like padel Solta, do they want a chef? Do they want people bringing food in? Do they want a beach nearby? What is it that padel Salta provides that really makes the experience unforgettable?

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 18:37

We thought it was the combination of many different things that you could actually do. padel was a core, but from that you can do other excursions, et cetera. In our Case, it's an island, so it's, you can go around it. But what we have seen, actually, that's what I'm saying, there are many kind of hardcore leisure tourists because don't even wanna leave the resort. So they wanna be here and we were expecting they wanted to go out and see the villages, to have dinners at night, but they were so tired after playing padel many hours. Where is the food? We're going to the restaurant. No, we don't wanna go. We wanna stay here and after we will play padel again. So for us, it has become very much about padel. But that's also because we have the courts on the property. We have the pool. We have the courts. But in your case, maybe in Spain you have other options because they don't live where they play all the time. So they must leave for their hotel and maybe they go to the city for a dinner or so. So I think it depends.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 19:44

And do you, just a side question Tom, do you see people coming to padel Solta bringing their own coach? Or wanting to bring their own coach?

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 19:54

They bring a coach of their own. Yeah. So from different countries like, and we have many guests from the uk, for instance. They don't bring coaches themselves. Not yet. It'll come. I know it's growing so fast in the uk. But we have from Belgium, from Austria, from Denmark and the Nordic countries, they bring a coach as well. And maybe they want a assistant coach. We can provide them with an assistant coach.

The Change in Customer Care & Attention to Detail

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 20:20

Talking about Padel Solta, but could be also NAC. What I really see different since when I started back in 2018, is the level of customer care around the padel experience. When we started, we actually was one of the reason why we joined this market, was a lack of quality service around let's say around the court. And right now there are a lot of professional off court such as Guillermo, Fabio, Tom that really provided a high quality customer care. That means his ability to adapt to preference and customer and needs of any customer. And I think especially for the lifestyle breaker, it's something that really matter.

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 21:10

Yeah.

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 21:11

No, I totally agree. If I can add something in terms of the facilities that that these kind of customers are asking. For example is super important, the dressing room. They want to know exactly in which club they're going to play. How is the dressing room? How is the restaurant at the club? Maybe they are staying in the hotel. They choose a five star hotel. But also because maybe they are spending, some hours there, they want to have also lunch. They are asking us what is the level of the restaurant or maybe can switch the club with the same coaches just for the restaurant. Okay. This is super super interesting and we saw the different type of customer also because they are asking for different class of businesses in the flight for example. For the hotel, the position of the hotel. Maybe for the hardcore players, they want to be super close to the club. In reality, the leisure, they want to be close to the touristic location. Like I want to be in the center of Malaga with my hotel because after I played a couple of hour of padel in the morning, I want to spend all the rest of my time with other people that are traveling with me, with my girlfriend, wife, or friends. Maybe having more touristic attraction or experiences or maybe going have a hotel close to the beach because the rest of the time I want to spend by the sea, et cetera, et cetera. In term of, also customer request is super different. That's why what Alessandro was saying is important. We need to be flexible and adapt our offering, based on the customer needs. Because everyone has different objectives.

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 23:02

In all case, the most important thing is to excel the client's expectation. The more important is try to get the best experience to all training, the drills, the times the levels. And then probably the another things about the padel experience may be it's better or better depending on restaurant experience or the places. I don't know. But I think everyone want the best experience to the people, no.

Tournament Padel Breaks

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 23:34

And Fabio, I want to come back to you on these tournament visitors that you raised at the beginning. The third category. So, obviously you've got partnerships in place with most rights holders. I guess tickets to the event are pretty fundamental? But what else do these holiday makers expect to be provided around that core proposition?

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 23:55

Yeah. I think we're not reinventing the wheel. So we have taken what is already working in other sport, no? If you think especially, NBA, NFL, America Sport, the event is not just a sport, but it's an entertainment moment. For example, as I was saying at the beginning, we are trying to combine moment while you play. At the moment where you are in the tournament event maybe seeing the matches packages is super important. We are trying to combine, also meet and greet with players, or with the top coaches. Now, for example, last week in Doha we were creating this experience with Pablo Herrero, so where you can book playing in the morning padel in Doha with Pablo Herrero and the padel coaches. And then in the afternoon you were seeing the matches, at the first measure. And then maybe there are also in that moment an element of touristic experiences. We bring you to the desert and have in the morning, early in the morning, others experience before the tournament. Think there is a touristic element that we always try to combine to give a sense, because as I was saying, more and more, this is becoming an excuse for exploring the destination, okay? Then a moment of playing. So you want to playing padel, not many hour maybe is a lesson, a clinic with Gustavo Pratto coaches et cetera, or other coaches, local coaches that could provide this kind of clinic. And then the third element is within the event, an entertainment moment. That could be the hospitality, meet and greet with the players, with managers, having a seat in the player box, for example. So it's something unique that you cannot buy on the standard ticketing platform. So the idea is to create an experience around the event that could fit different expectation, like we were saying also for the leisure travel. Because also for the premier partner and the FIP is really important to start having this kind of people from abroad traveling for seeing the match, not just for the local destination. Because otherwise also the number of destination where you can organize this event is really limited. Instead, if you are able to start moving people, then we have a variety range of destination and venue that we can choose for this kind of tournament event.

Exploring the Evolution of the Sector

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 26:51

I'd like to now zoom out a little bit about the industry at large. Alessandra, you touched on this already about how the space is maturing since you started in 2018. Are we still in the early days of the padel travel, tourism movement? Or are we actually now more in phase two and phase three and how has the space evolved? What are you seeing? How have the expectations evolved?

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 27:14

Actually a lot of things happened since 2018, to be honest. I dunno how many time we have. Now first of all, a huge growth of course. I perfectly remember my first World Padel Tour back in 2018. And actually I was coming from be part of the organization of the Expo 2015 in Milan, Olympic Games. And that one was a very full local event. So everything has changed. Now there is a big entertainment around the main tournament, so this is something amazing. When I started I just, felt this interesting around padel, but there was no services. There was no anyone building a kind of bridge between padel, high level padel experience and international players. To be honest, Spain specifically was totally stuck. Okay. They don't look at the international market as an opportunity. I think Covid was the turning point. COVID changed everything. So it has, it had also a positive aspect because of course padel start growing everywhere and also people start traveling for their passion. So in this case, for padel. And talk about padel travel sector. The main difference is that at the beginning was something very amateur. Someone contacting a club, I don't know, some guys working at travel agency, trying to just collecting people and doing some very amateur experience. While right now there are many many professional, that are really elevating the level of the experience. And also it's important because talking about international market usually people book two, three months in advance and two, 3000 kilometers away from where the experience will take place. That means that they need trust, credibility. This is our, I think our key aspect. And talk about where we are, I don't think is mature market. Why? First of all probably Fabio has some more data. But most of the padel travelers are based in Europe. So just one continent and talking about one continent, probably the three biggest country: uk, Germany, and France are in a very early stage. And another key point from my experience is that even the mature market, for instance still our first market is Italy, where maybe some other, padel product supplier such as, I dunno, court manufacturer, are suffering or can consider the market mature italian padel traveler, still traveling a lot. So I think there is these two positive aspect. In the mature market, people still keep being super happy to travel for padel and a lot of the new emerging country in Europe. Of course there is a big attention to US, Asia that are of course country that their sites can really change the game. I think we are still in our early stages. There is still a huge room to grow.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 31:00

Fabio, would you agree with that?

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 31:03

Yeah. I agree also from my point of view, we just started. But also from my point of view, we are still at the beginning of this journey. Of course, Alessandro started this journey a lot of time ago and he has a lot of knowledge on how this evolve in the last five seven years. But still, I think we are just at the beginning, because I totally agree. This is connected with emerging market. So the reason for travel for padel is is because I want to train with the best coaches. We talk about this at the very beginning, and now the best coaches are located in Spain and Argentina. And now they start moving, as Tom was saying, let's bring Spanish coaches to Croatia, of course, because it's an amazing destination. I want to play there. So if there is a good quality. But in terms of customer origin, I think is starting right now. Because uk, France, Germany, but also Italy is starting just in in the last couple of years. And then there is all the Nordics market that is already following touristic corridor. Nordics, coming to South Spain for holidays is something happening for the last 30, 30 years. So they're just bringing a new element, a new reason for traveling. Not just for the good weather. Is because my passion, because of my sport padel. And everything will change when the emerging market or emerging continent will come into the game. As I was saying, I saw how fast is going padel in us in the last 12 months. I was not expecting that. I think we need to expect an acceleration. So not having 30 ,000 court in 2030, but probably before. So definitely this is something happening probably earlier. And also we are receiving a request from Africa. South Africa is emerging. Asia as well. Russia. I was talking with a lot of people selling clothes and equipment that now also Russia market is starting. Saudi Arabia, et cetera is already there. So I think we're going to see a big boost in the next couple of years, not decade.

Travel to Engender Club Loyalty

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 33:39

Maybe it's a bit side of the padel tourism, but I think it's not because we see also many padel clubs and padel centers, they want to create traveling for their frequent players because at least in the Nordics we feel that they sometimes lack the feeling of being part of a club. We have a big problem. People play a lot of padel, but they're not members in a club. So, the padel centers, they want to create a feeling of a community. They offer traveling every year to Spain or to different destinations. So I think that will be an add-on as well to to growing the padel, traveling very much the coming years.

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 34:27

Alex, can I add something about what Tom just mentioned. Because I think this is another key point. Because in general, the local padel player is not so loyal No? In comparison with other sports like maybe tennis player play all lifelong in the same tennis club, no? While especially in the emerging market ,where there is a high demand and low supply, usually people play whether there is a court available. Opportunity like traveling together really help to make your customer more loyal. This is something to get closer and not just a 90 minute experience and then go back home. This is something very important. And another aspect, especially when we talk about hardcore or traveling to Spain is that, that travel is aspirational. That means that people go back and the ones who play two times start playing three times. The ones who don't want two classes realize that with some classes, they can get their padel to the next level. So it has a many different positive aspect, padel traveling.

Tracking the Evolution

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 35:45

And Guillermo, I wanted to ask you, over the recent years, last five, 10 years, have you really seen a change in the proportion of revenue that comes to a club like NAC from padel Tourists and padel Travelers? I'm sure it used to be that the story that in nac, most of your money would come from locals, people who were from Malaga, who were members, who had played there. Are you seeing that through just the numbers and the number of people on court, that actually the padel tourist sector is becoming bigger and bigger for your business?

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 36:19

Yes. the sector has grown in the last three years. And in our case with the Scandinavia and Nordic Market. But in another seasons, maybe Middle East people in July and August. And I work in the sector, the padel tourisms and hotel industry for many years. And I have management of luxury resort also. I have experience with agencies and I think it's only the beginning. Because now the agencies is grown and there are many countries that has grown. And I think the Poland, for example, or Germany or UK are the next Scandinavian people. For this reason I think the next years will be more important for agencies to do good work to new markets.

Advice for Agencies and Destinations: Dos and Don'ts

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 37:21

And we're running a little bit low on time. I just wanted to ask what's this group's advice for agencies or destinations? What are the mistakes that they're still making in terms of their offering? Maybe even their marketing and communication. Like what's your advice for, if you want to be a destination that is considered, credible and relevant for this market? What are the do's and don'ts?

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 37:45

In our cases is more important that the we have a big structure. Because when the people come to the club, we have a concierge service to receive the people. And then we have a structure, a sport director, technical director. And for us is more important to tactical director, technical director, organize all drills and one coordinator at four courts, for example, to coordinate and see all the work or the drills of the level and work together with three or four coaches. But the big mistake I think is improvisation. But for us I know it's no every club maybe has some structure. But the more important for us is the structure that, one director to coordinate the times the works of the coaches. And technical director to organize exactly the drills and two or three sessions, one per day or one in morning, one in afternoon. And then in the club, to always has one people to coordinate all the necessity of the people. And then it is important to grow and continue growing. Improve the experience, customer experience. And for this reason, for us, it's more important to us: no improvisation, organize all the trip, all the moment.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 39:25

Okay. Anyone else? Any advice, any dos and don'ts?

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 39:28

If we go to the more leisure players, travelers, I think what we have heard a lot already is that do we have free access to the courts? 'cause if you are a leisure traveler, and even if you have coaching in the morning, maybe you wanna play spontaneously after lunch or late at night. Can we light up the courts? So I think if can open up for some, it's not so easy when you go to maybe to an academy, you have to book the coach for certain hours. They're very busy. But can you maybe arrange a few courts for the group to have free access where they can play spontaneously whenever they want? We see it all the time. Sometimes they cannot even finish the dinner. Now we're gonna play again. We have a rematch to do. And it's amazing. And even early in the morning when we come up early in the morning, we see people on the courts. And this is not so common to find already. So I think we will see more

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 40:29

a degree of adaptability.

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 40:30

Yes.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 40:33

And any other do's and don'ts, Alessandra and Fabio from your overview?

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 40:38

Talking about agency we consider us as a padel company. So if I think about some, for instance, travel agency, just selling the packages, probably some common mistakes that I see is, first of all: I would do a deep research of the right partners. Okay. Because there is no still long established relationship. So just some usually travel agency, maybe local travel agency, just pick some club or local partners, but they don't have a big relationship, previous relationship with these guys. So that could be a little bit risky. And the other point is focusing just on price. Okay. So I think there is room for everything: for luxury padel experiences, for standard, for cheap and so on. So I think the travel agency as a reseller in this case, I think should just wide their offering and not focusing on just lower the price because they are afraid of not being competitive. It depends on what you sell.

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 41:51

Depend. Now there are many agencies. We have 60 or 70 agencies that we work. And there are new agencies to know not only the price, try to do the best experience. But I think the new agencies in new places there are a future for me. Yeah.

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 42:12

I totally agree. And what I want to put on the table is the angle of transparency, no? Because of course, if we talk about Marbella, we have, a padel travel experience for one day padel experience could cost 50 euros till 500, no? And of course there is space for everyone, as Alessandro was saying. What is important is really be transparent and show exactly what included, what not included, why this has this kind of price, what is the quality, the level of the coaches, facilities, et cetera, et cetera? And what I see from our point of view, because of course being a marketplace, we are talking with a lot of different operators and players and destination. Usually we discovered there is no idea on the packages that they want to sell. No pricing, not what's included. Right now we are the one saying, Hey, provide me a price for these kind of packages because I know that is what the customer is looking for. One day, three days package. Five days packages. And then other are optional element: four hours of coaches, eight hours, five hour, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the problem I see is there is no one at the moment really taking care of that because they are receiving requests. Every time I do something from scratch, I do a different pricing, cetera, et cetera. Instead, we need to work in a professional way. We need to create packages that make sense for the customer. There is a reason to choose that packages or instead of another one. And then the price is no more the decision component. Is more on the experience I want to do. If everything fill my expectation, my needs, then the price is not always a problem. So my suggestion is really to work on the product composition and pricing using transparency.

Future of the Sector

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 44:23

And my last question is what's the future hold for this space? Some ideas that came to my mind and I'm no genius: is padel cruises and content creator marketing to try and really allow people to see and experience what this holiday will look like with someone that you trust and like. We all know that influencers are incredibly important part of the marketing mix these days. So those were two ideas I had. You can have them for free. But do you have any other ideas about what the future for this space holds? Alessandro you look like you're about to come

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 44:55

Yeah. No. You mentioned padel cruises; the trips with the big influencer: for sure some important option for the upcoming future. But I think what really can change the market is approaching the B2B world. Because I think in my mind I think padel has all the ingredients to become the new golf, okay? So I just bring together different person profiles, and I think it has all the ingredient to convert itself in a big networking opportunity. It's very inclusive. That is a key aspect for corporate events where maybe people just bring the racket that day as the first time. So I think that is a key aspect that can just change the market size of all the padel travel sector. This is my point of view.

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 45:55

Anyone else? Any thoughts? I.

tom-bergqvist---padel-solta-d-o-o-_1_04-24-2025_115421 45:57

Yeah, I totally agree with you, Alessandro. We, last year, we did our first real season here and we had four or even five business conferences the first year. They wanna have an active conference. They wanted coaching. And facility for the conference of course, but also for the events and influencers, as you said, as well. Very interesting. And also the other example in Croatia, I don't know about Spain, but in Croatia sailing is very popular. Many tourists go to Dalmatia for sailing. There are many cruising companies. And we were approached by someone in Italy. They wanted for a group to create four days of sailing in the Adriatic Sea and three days of padel. They said, we found out about this place. Can you do it? Yes, of course, we said. So we contacted one of them and suddenly they had a new product to the market: Okay. sailing and padel for a week to combine the two. It's, it was amazing. So it's a lot of creativity. I think you can figure out a lot of different products, as you say, Fabio. Find it. Reshape it. Reprice it and yeah, it's interesting.

fabio-zecchini_1_04-24-2025_115424 47:12

And by the way, padel cruise is already there, so it's already happening. Not maybe with the padel court in the cruises, but the different stop across the Mediterranean is already happening. also with the, for example, we were already selling a week trip with some influencer in Italy, but also in UK and Spain and other market because, I want to travel with that influencer and in the meantime play padel together. So this is definitely something already happening. The corporate element is super important. I was mentioning before. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of venues or destination that are able to support this. You can mention Rafa Nadal Academy, padel Solta. Because there are club destination that has also the accommodation included. That are able to host For example 100, 200 people: having meeting rooms, having conference room, and then play padel at the same time, the same weekend. Because, as Alessandro was saying, is super inclusive. So also if you have 30 people that never play padel, is just for the first time, they go on the court and they have fun. Is not happening with any other sport in the world. That's why from my point of view, padel is not just a sport, it is also a social moment, a social event. So these are something that already started. On my side, what I feel, what I would like to happen is maybe also during the tournament event, having some leisure moment. Like happening, for example, in tennis when there is the Indian Wells for the pro tournament there is also a amateur tournament in the same week. So you can go there, spend the entire week Indian Wells playing tennis, having a tournament, having lesson in the meantime. Also looking at the tournament. So I feel and hope this is going to happen also to the padel sport. Because is what people end of the day are asking. Golf is already in that angle is already happening, seeing similar. Again, from my point of view, this is what would be the game changer for the padel industry in the future.

guillermo-del-grosso_1_04-24-2025_115424 49:44

I think in the future, we have to continue learning, about golf. Because golf not exactly the same because four or five days the people want to play in another golf courses. But now in padel, maybe at the same place, three or four times. But, I think that golf is a model that we have to think because the agencies to try to get the new groups. And for this reason, the operation is a more similar model that I think, it's similar at the future of the padel. I think that we will learn much about golf and golf agencies. And now we are working with golf agencies that beginning to work to padel as another product. And then in this case, I think it's a future.

alessandro-di-stefano_1_04-24-2025_115424 50:44

If I can add something because I studied a little bit the best case about golf travel, and I think there is some aspect that we try to copy or get inspiration that, first of all in comparison with padel you have a high spending customer or a higher spending customer. So this is a good point. Usually they do off season travel. Okay. So not just in, like in summertime, but there are a lot of golf travelers in fall and winter. They have clear packages. So usually what mentioned Fabio: transparency, trust, credibility is already there. And usually they have an average of longer stay in comparison with padel travelers. So this is something that probably it help to get more revenue. They have a lot of dedicated facilities, so there are a lot of golf resort that also helps in case of B2B events. And of course is probably the main reference about networking. So I think is a very nice world where padel can learn a lot.

Outro

alex_1_04-24-2025_105424 51:55

That's a great summary to wrap up this episode. Again, please share, and subscribe. If the content was thought provoking, please comment on LinkedIn. If you have any recommendations around our format, topics, we should devote an episode to, questions we should ask. Speakers we need to bring on. We want you all those driving the next phase of this industry's future to tell us what you want to hear about and who from. So a quick final thank you to Alessandro, Fabio, Guillermo, and Tom for joining us today. And we will keep doing our best to cover all the angles of the business around padel episode after episode. Until the next one.