Airbnb, Marriott, and the European Commission Have Created Four Opportunities to Revitalize and Promote Destinations
by Heather Cassell
Got skills? Are you young and entrepreneurial? Are you able to relocate for a year or more? Are you ready to venture out into the world? Marriott, Airbnb, and Italy have once in a lifetime opportunities waiting for the adventurous and lucky.
If you’ve ever dreamed of being a social media influencer or simply living and working abroad in Italy, your dream can become a reality with four incredible programs:
#30stays300days Contest
How would you like to have Marriott Bonvoy TikTok Correspondent as your next job on your resume? Marriott’s Bonvoy program is looking for three people ready to pack their bags and take off for 300 days around the world to stay at the hotel group’s boutique to ultra-luxury hotels and resorts for the #30stays300days contest.
The global hotel group has a collection of 30 hotel and resort brands, such as the Autograph Collection to the Ritz-Carlton, with more than 7,000 hotels under the Marriott Bonvoy umbrella. Now, who doesn’t want a free trip staying at the best of the best hotels in the world? You would have to be crazy not to want this opportunity.
The newly minted jetsetters will be paid $15,000 to document their hotel hopping experiences daily on social media and digital content. They will also become media personalities making appearances on behalf of Marriott. Along with the jetset life, they will also get some nifty perks. The correspondents will stay at 10 different Marriott hotels and resorts selected by them and Marriott for up to 14 nights (or a total of 56 comped hotel nights) in each at up to four different destinations around the world free. All flights will be included along with a $2,500 Uber credit and a $10,000 Marriott Bonvoy gift card for on-property expenses, such as meals and spa services.
Travel buddies are allowed but will have to pay their own way.
To apply, you must be at least 21-years old and a US resident. Comply with all Covid-19-related requirements, such as vaccinations and testing. The contest opened January 18. TikTok video applications explaining why you would be a good correspondent for Marriott must be submitted using the hashtags #30stays300days and #contest by March 18, 2022.
Three grand prize winners will be selected along with up to seven finalists. Finalists will be awarded 45,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.
Live The Italian Dream, Two Ways
If the jetset life isn’t your style, perhaps a year in Italy is just the ticket. And in the process, you can add Airbnb Italy host in Sambuca to your credentials.
Airbnb is seeking a host to live rent free for a year in its newly renovated three-story Sicilian house in the charming 6,000-person village, Sambuca, 50 miles south of Palermo. The house has three-bedroom and two-bathroom. The king-size bedroom with an en suite bathroom on the ground floor. A king-size bedroom with a living room, the kitchen, a workspace, and another bathroom on the second floor. On the top floor is another living space with a queen-size sofa bed.
The house is a part of Sambuca’s revitalization program that made headlines in 2019 auctioning off abandoned houses for 1 euro. It was renovated and modernized by the Italian architectural firm Studio Didea.
The lucky candidate, there will be only one, will start their year in Italy June 30, 2022. They will select which room they will reside in for the year, rent out the other rooms, and be able to keep all the earnings as Airbnb hosts and flights and transfers to Sambuca will be covered. They will also have the opportunity to take Italian language and cooking classes given by a local mentor.
Friends, partners, or family up to two adults and two children total are allowed to move to Italy for a year to live with the candidate.
Host are expected to become a part of the community. Sambuca di Sicilia’s mayor Leonardo Ciaccio Airbnb they were seeking someone “who wants to live with the local population and participate in all the important moments of the community, from the grape harvest to olive picking.”
Who doesn’t want to experience an Italian wine and olive harvest?
To qualify to become Airbnb’s first-ever Italy host in Sambuca, applicants must:
- Be 18 years of age or older
- Able to move to Sambuca by June 30, 2022
- Able to live there and host guests for at least three consecutive months (hosts will be free to travel or return home)
- Host guests for a minimum of nine months of the year
- Speak English, some Italian language skills is a plus
- Follow Italian Covid-19 health and travel regulations
To apply, submit a short essay (250 words maximum) about why you want to move to Sicily and be the host by February 18, 2022 (Hurry!!! Last few days).
Live And Work In Italy
Are you young, skilled and nomadic? These legendary Italian cities want you. Florence and Venice have launched remote work programs to revitalize the famed Italian cities Be.Long and Venywhere, respectively.
The once over-touristed Italian cities were inspired by America’s Tulsa Remote and other similar programs around the world. They are seeking to untether themselves from being tourist-dependent eyeing diversifying their economies and repopulating their historic centers for the recovery and post-pandemic world.
Imagine living and working in the legendary romantic floating city or being a part of the Renaissance city 2.0. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, considering how challenging it once was to get a work visa in Italy, or Europe for that matter. Now remote work programs seeking newly minted digital nomads and remote workers, usually young, educated, and entrepreneurial are popping up throughout the continent.
Florence and Venice have taken the worry out of seeking a place to live, even with so many converted to vacation rentals on home sharing platforms, paperwork, navigating the city, and other ways to easily transform those who apply into a Florentine or a Venetian.
Venywhere
Venice is seeking young entrepreneurial types and corporations temporarily relocating work teams to live and work in Italy’s floating city.
Venice’s new remote work program, Venywhere, launched in December 2021. Created by Massimo Warglien, a professor of management at the Università Ca’ Foscari, a nonprofit group that protects Venice’s cultural heritage, the project’s goal is to supercharge the aging city – both locals and buildings – with young professionals and corporate programs. Bloomberg reported within the last 70 or so years Venice’s historical center’s population has shrunk from 174,000 in the 1950s to about 50,000 in the 2020’s. Twice as many as its residents are in their 50s than there are people in their 20s.
Through Venywhere, Venice is eyeing freelancers, remote workers, and companies willing to send entire teams to live temporarily in the city to bring new life to Venice’s crumbling palazzi and half-used spaces. Unlike less storied cities, Venice isn’t enticing remote workers with cash incentives. People who are interested in relocating to Venice pay a one-time fee to access services that will assist them with finding an apartment, accessing the health care system, connect them with workspaces, and language classes among other things the city has to offer.
One little problem, the city isn’t set up to host digital nomads. It’s also not the city’s culture. People go to cafes to socialize, not to work on their laptops over an espresso or two for a couple of hours. Wi-Fi isn’t widespread throughout the city. Currently, the city doesn’t have workspaces.
Venywhere is preparing to get the lagoon city connected and ready to welcome a new generation of works that go beyond gondoliers, tour guides, hotel managers, restaurant managers, or waiters. Its creating a network of open-air Wi-Fi hotspots around the city and turning former warehouses, empty art gallaries and museums into remote workspaces.
The program’s focus on young people hasn’t escaped criticism of ageism. Venywhere has received criticism for focusing on young talent and overlooking the talent of older workers or retirees starting second careers, but the issue hasn’t been addressed.
Be.Long
Florence is also seeking the young and gifted from students to a new generation of workers digital nomads, 15 to 30. The European Commission launched the Garanzia Giovani Program, Be.Long, in April 2021. The Italian government is willing to train and assist young workers offering internships, apprenticeships, and opportunities in the civil service. All you must do is apply, interview, and become a resident – citizenship is not required – in Italy and have a regular residence permit.
Book your next Intrepid women-only vacation with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
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