Le Mat - European Social Franchising Network

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
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 www.socialfranchising.coop. 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
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: http://www.lemat.it/it/il-marchio/i-soci-in-italia
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
At the time of writing in Italy there are 10 approved LE MAT SPECIAL PLACES.
See here for more information: http://www.lemat.it/it/i-nostri-affiliati
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
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.
LOGO vs
THE TOOLS
The franchise system
THE FRANCHISEE
Members and not members
THE TECNICAL
STRUCTURE
Affiliation
Training
Control
Communication
THE TRAVELLERS
Associations - Institutions
- single travellers - tribes
THE CONSORTIUM
Board of Directors
Members ÕAssembly
Promotion and Support
Institutional Relationships
Social Franchising workshop - SUGENOVA - 14th April 2011
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
LOGO vs
THE TOOLS
sono necessari per visualizzare quest'immagine.
THE LE MAT MANUALS
QuickTime™ e un
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
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
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
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 11
00154 ROMA
RENATE GOERGEN – brand manager
Tel: +393357780682
info@lemat.it
www.lemat.it
www.lemat.se
www.viaggiatorisociali.net
ESFN Case Study
9
LE MAT