Xavier Claveria Masip and Raquel love to travel. For their honeymoon they wanted to take a special trip to Tanzania, in which in addition to enriching their minds and souls, the local population would also be enriched. No matter how hard they tried, they explain that only a small part of the money they paid ended up in local hands, while the rest went to the accounts of large travel agencies with Western owners. This experience, together with the desire to start a new life after years of great dedication to their respective jobs, led the newly married couple to found Trip to Help in 2022.
This new Barcelona travel agency operates with NGOs and associations that carry out local development projects. Their specialty is Africa, where they offer trips to Tanzania, Kenya and, soon, Morocco, but they also have multi-day excursions in Peru. “It is not volunteering, but tourism in which the benefits are reinvested in projects that really respond to the needs of the people who live in the territory,” explains Claveria. In this sense, Priego indicates that “each traveler pays between six and nine months of schooling for a child.”
Trip to Help has grown organically, without outside help, at the same time that the entrepreneurs were raising their first daughter. Last year, the agency invoiced 110,000 euros, of which more than 70,000 went directly to local development organizations. For this year, the entrepreneurs’ goal is to double these figures.
