Le Mat. A brand and a social franchise system in responsible, sustainable and community tourism. Travelling with social entrepreneurs

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1 Le Mat Travelling with social entrepreneurs A brand and a social franchise system in responsible, sustainable and community tourism European Social Franchising Network Case Study 4

2 ESFN Case studies At the time of writing, there are just under 60 social franchises in Europe employing over 13,000 people. This is one of a number of case studies produced by ESFN to demonstrate the impact social franchises are having across Europe, share learning and raise the profile of this important approach to growing and developing social cooperatives/enterprises. ESFN is a network set up by social franchises to support the development of social franchising across Europe. You can find out more at The production of this case study was funded by the European Commission as part of the Better Future for the Social Economy Learning Network of 7 national European Social Fund Managing Authorities. LE MAT business model LE MAT is is the European social entrepreneur s tourism brand which has been first developed in Italy and than also in Sweden. LE MAT is also a way to travel, and a way to meet other people sharing interesting, inclusive local practices. ESFN Case Study 2 LE MAT

3 LE MAT in brief... LE MAT is a brand and a social franchise system of social entrepreneurs in tourism. LE MAT stands for sustainable and inclusive small-scale local tourism, and for a special method of managing hospitality, welcoming, support, and care of LE MAT travellers, who we would like to be an active part of our community of entrepreneurs working inclusively. The LE MAT hotels, hostels, B&Bs, the LE MAT hospitality system, and the LE MAT cooperatives act in the general interest of the human community for more sustainable and inclusive development, endeavouring to enhance all the human and environment resources of the local community. Each LE MAT social franchisee has their own Quality Handbook, which has been developed in conjunction with all workers and members of the team, and with the help of the LE MAT social franchisor. These site-specific Handbooks set down rules of daily work and management. Each LE MAT social franchisee also has a personalised LE MAT Quality Assurance Card to be offered to our guests for their comment, suggestions, and feedback. We want travellers to be a part of the evaluation and quality development process. LE MAT welcomes all travellers and guests. With their help, we want to learn how to be more welcoming, and how to deliver a better service: how to surmount all barriers - physical, psychological, sensorial, and cultural - which all too often impede communication and cultural exchange. Every LE MAT is special and unique! LE MAT is owned in Italy and in Europe by social-cooperatives. In Italy it is a Consortium (a co-operative society of social cooperatives), a social enterprise owned by 9 social co-operatives, 3 consortia of social co-operatives, the LE MAT Travellers Association and Coopfond, a co-operative development agency. They are the collective owners of the brand, members of the co-operative society and they elect the board of directors every 3 years. The co-operatives and consortia are allocated all over Italy and all together they employ more one thousand workers (many of them disadvantaged), certainly not all of them in the tourism branch. You can find LE MAT owners in Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia, Latium, Umbria, Tuscany, Lombardy, Venetia - from the far south to the far North. See here for more information: On European level LE MAT is also a co-operative owned by LE MAT ITALY and LE MAT SWEDEN. The task of the owners is to increase the value of the brand by implementing the LE MAT model in tourism but also by developing the franchise system. ESFN Case Study 3 LE MAT

4 At the time of writing in Italy there are 10 approved LE MAT SPECIAL PLACES. See here for more information: Others are going through the learning process to become a franchisee. In Sweden at the moment there are 2 LE MAT B&Bs Origins LE MAT officially started in 2004 by distilling good and sustainable practice from Trieste in the north-east of Italy. Il posto delle fragole (LE MAT founder member)is a cooperative composed of young psychiatric patients, artists, drug addicts, physicians and sympathizers, that from the late 1980s managed a small hotel. The LE MAT Hotel brand copied and developed some of the key success factors from Trieste and other social co-operatives. HOTEL TRITONE is a mid-scale hotel that targets the mid income traveller. It is centrally located with good transport links, but what is more important is that the management group includes people with experience of exclusion, disabilities, discrimination and other issues for whom empowerment is a central question. Last but not least the quality is oversized because of their welcoming smile especially towards people with special needs - no barriers and people with disabilities help to abolish them! Since the Equal Project Albergo in Via dei Matti n.0 LE MAT has developed the idea of Social Franchising developing it in the tourism and hospitality industries. The practice of Trieste has become the base for LE MAT social franchising in hospitality and from this handbooks were developed. As LE MAT developed further, the Equal project highlighted the fact that the replication of just one model a 30 rooms hotel in main cities, near transport link, complete accessible and usable by people with disabilities is not enough. Evne if there are common elements, all situations differ from each other, there are variations in culture, geography, architecture, entrepreneurship and social aspects. In relation of that LE MAT is carrying out a continuous process of model s distillation starting from the single situations where LE MAT is involved. So now, for example LE MAT is discussing among its members how to make sustainable small inn and hostels in rural area through the creation a local network of inns, hotels, B&Bs, working with local producers and promote KM 0 policies - the products used in production cycles come from a limited area nearby the social enterprises. How in general to develop a local system of responsible tourism, a system where local actors such as public entities, hospitality and tourist actors, local producers, citizens and the same tourists are responsible for the sustainable local development and they act and take decisions that respect their impact on people, planet and profit the triple bottom line. It s a bottom up process where LE MAT social entrepreneurs discover and share interesting and innovative practices in inclusive tourism, hospitality and sustainable local development identifying needs, demand, processes and quality standards. Step by step LE MAT distils the different experiences it knows and it meets, LE MAT extracts the most significant quality ESFN Case Study 4 LE MAT

5 elements and it tries to replicate those that LE MAT and its members agree upon. LE MAT, thus, is working in order to define more models to be replicated in the different contests where social enterprises operate in. THE TOOLS The franchise system LOGO vs THE FRANCHISEE Members and not members THE TRAVELLERS Associations - Institutions - single travellers - tribes THE TECNICAL STRUCTURE Affiliation Training Control Communication Social Franchising workshop - SUGENOVA - 14th April 2011 THE CONSORTIUM Board of Directors Members ÕAssembly Promotion and Support Institutional Relationships In 2010 the LE MAT MANIFESTO was developed and is now guiding the franchising processes. You can find it here in ENGLISH. The franchising system today Actually in Italy there are - as we already said - 10 approved LE MAT SPECIAL PLACES, not all hotels or hostels. Many other co-operatives or social entrepreneurs in the tourism sector are asking to become a LE MAT SPECIAL PLACE. What happens precisely after their request to join? After a detailed visit and a report about what these aspirational LE MAT franchisees have to do, a pre-contract is signed and various tools are applied to their learning process. ESFN Case Study 5 LE MAT

6 QuickTime e un sono necessari per visualizzare quest'immagine. LOGO vs THE TOOLS THE LE MAT MANUALS decompressore sono necessari per visualizzare quest'immagine. Le Mat - the franchising process Le Mat - the organization Le Mat - the Hotel Le Mat - The Hostels Le Mat - the local touristic systems Le Mat - budget and business plan Le Mat - accessibility, furniture etc Le Mat - comunication and selling Le Mat - traing Social Franchising workshop - SUGENOVA - 14th April 2011 LE MAT and its members actions are directed to produce a change in the local community and all its actors in terms of inclusion, planning, sustainability and solidarity. LE MAT acts in order to facilitate social enterprises to achieve own goals in the tourism sector: promotion and turn to the best account the cultural, social, vocational and occupational value of persons with a history of disability, mental illness or drug addiction, as well as all those who, for one reason or another, are the subject of discrimination and/or exclusion from the labour market and/or the community. LE MAT s activities impact directly in the social enterprise environment working on enterprises producing cycles hospitality and tourism production cycle, empowerment cycle - and on the local community process where the social enterprise is, or aim to be, a main actor promoting sustainable and responsible processes. ESFN Case Study 6 LE MAT

7 LOGO vs THE TOOLS The Kit to personalize the affiliation process 1) Collecting the entrepreneurial story/stories and the inclusion processes 2) Self evaluation 3) The architectual project and the collective planning 4) The entrepreneurial, managerial and professional training processes 5) The exchange visits 6) Marketing and selling - learning by doing 7) Our webside 2.0 Social Franchising workshop - SUGENOVA - 14th April 2011 There are many, many services inside the franchise system in order to support the social entrepreneurs in marketing, selling, training, organizing, business planning. The system has to grow step, by step and all together. ESFN Case Study 7 LE MAT

8 The overall impact of the LE MAT franchise system Tourism today is essentially communication, story telling, discovering unknown places and interesting people. The social networks are very important in the development of tourist destinations and proposals. LE MAT is quite well placed in many social networks and more and more the travellers are increasing. Our members with disabilities learn to tell something about themselves and step by step they the empowerment process is going on. The local communities were the LE MAT social entrepreneurs act become proud and the inclusion processes increase. Tourism means meeting people ad travellers use word of mouth in order to tell each other where to go. Today they use blogs, internet, social networks and so it is possible to exit from the isolation of the world of disabilities. Funding the franchise LE MAT is owned by social co-operatives that together set up a cooperative between cooperative societies. The owners have to put the risk capital for the development process. ESFN Case Study 8 LE MAT

9 The number of franchisees have to increase until they aren t enough to reach with their annual fees and the payment of the services the breakeven point. In Italy one of the owners/members of the Consortium LE MAT is a kind of social investor COOPFOND. This Social investor doubled the share and risk capital we needed to start the franchise system. Actually the franchisees pay a annual fee and than they pay their services. In addition we use development resources we can find in the different regions. We need more risk capital. Future plans Our main objectives is to increase the number of franchisees in Italy and to increase the LE MAT franchise systems in other countries. On the other hand we would like to increase the LE MAT travellers throughout developing the LE MAT traveller association. We also want to work more on developing the LE MAT communication system Key success factors 1. A strong viable business concept 2. A well known customer brand 3. Continuous innovation of the business concept 4. Advocacy on behalf of members and defence of their common interests 5. The tourism branch Contact LE MAT Via Giulietti ROMA RENATE GOERGEN brand manager Tel: info@lemat.it ESFN Case Study 9 LE MAT