About

The story of a company that grows and connects Liguria with the world

The story of Arbaspàa Tour Operator starts with an entrepreneurial idea that combines both the love for travel and for our territory: the Cinque Terre and Liguria.

In July 2001, Eugenio Bordoni and Catherina Unger, the two owners and managing directors began this adventure.

The company, headquartered in Manarola, started to grow thanks to the determination of the founders and their innovative ideas of sustainable tourism in this area, that had just been included in the list of UNESCO Worldheritage sites. Bordoni and Unger started with little seed capital but their formula of quality tourism has proved successful. Since 2005 the team has grown progressively to reach the current number of 25 staff members in high season.

Arbaspàa directly manages a rich selection of accommodations (charming apartments, rooms and guest houses) in the Cinque Terre villages as well as in the town of La Spezia.

The company’s daily tours and excursions in the Cinque Terre and in the province of La Spezia have been created with the intend to offer genuine experiences of our territory. Visitors find a wide range of activities including outdoor sports, art, boat excursions, wine & food.

In 2012 Arbaspàa opened its outdoor shop “Explora“ in order to supply hiking, trail-running and sea-sports lovers with a chosen selection of high quality outdoor gear of some of the world’s most famous brands such as Salomon, Merrell, Teva and Buff. The store also works as “activity centre” where visitors can inquire and book daily tours.

The opening of the second office in La Spezia, in february 2017, sets another milestone in the story of Arbaspàa and reflects the intention of the company to enlarge the range of the offered activities to the surrounding areas of La Spezia including the ancient land of Lunigiana, the valleys of Magra and Vara and the bordering Tuscany region.

Arbaspàa: a name that speaks about an unique land

“We were looking for an original name for our company, which spoke about our attachment to the hard and difficult territory with its values and needs,” say Arbaspàa’s founders, Eugenio Bordoni and Catherina Unger.

The right idea came during a family reunion: a word from the dialect of Manarola, the country of Cinque Terre where the company was founded, to refer to one of the symbols of the Eastern Liguria: the sword grass, better known as agave. Many of these plants spontaneously grow on the rough ridges and steep hills of this villages, famous all over the world: no wonder, for many foreigners agave is synonymous with Mediterranean, sun and warm.

What better image to let the mind of travelers all over the world fly to La Spezia’s area?And among the many voices that talk about this connection, one is the clearest: Eugenio Montale, the Nobel Prize for Literature. The poet, that talked about the beauty of the Cinque Terre, honored it with “Riviere” composition, inserted in the collection “Ossi di Seppia” of 1925:

“Riviere,
bastano pochi stocchi d’erbaspada
penduli da un ciglione
sul delirio del mare;
o due camelie pallide
nei giardini deserti,
e un eucalipto biondo che si tuffi
tra sfrusci e pazzi voli
nella luce;
ed ecco che in un attimo
invisibili fili a me si asserpano,
farfalla in una ragna
di fremiti d’olivi, di sguardi di girasoli.”

A name not easy, but highly evocative, become an irreplaceable part of the company.

Attention and maximum customer care, respect and regard of the environment that hosts it.

These are the cornerstones of Arbaspàa’s philosophy, which since its founding has put in the focus an offer of high quality and the protection of the territory.

“Sustainable tourism” is the concept to bring travelers with packages for small groups to a beautiful and fragile landscape: in this way, our customers have the opportunity to approach the place that hosts them and know the peculiarities, through the productive realities and our suppliers.

Three are the activities that make us proud and represent this commitment, starting with “Volontourism”: a special tour during which the tourist will live an unique experience in Vernazza, where together with the locals they will be engaged in the reconstruction of the paths and in the restoration of the environment, that was destroyed by the flood of 2011. In addition to this, the founders and owners of Arbaspàa Eugenio Bordoni and Catherina Unger from 2015 have become members of the Cinque Terre’s Primaterra farm (www.primaterra.it), which produces high quality wines: “a commitment that close the loop, investing the income of tourism in the sustenance of land and agricultural production, which in turn guarantee the continuity of tourism. This make us proud” they explain. In addition, since 2015, in collaboration with the Manarola Cinque Terre Foundation, Arbaspàa organizes visits for restricted and selected groups to make it known to those who come from other parts of Italy or from abroad, the important work of the body, constantly committed to the preservation of the environment through the cleansing of abandoned terraces and the reconstruction of drywalls in order to rent it to local farmers.

With the same attention paid to its territory, Arbaspàa takes care of those who choose to spend an unforgettable stay in Liguria by providing the customer with quality personalized services: stays, activities and experiences, during which they can count on the constant assistance of a selected staff.

E’ grazie ad una squadra formata da personale con competenze diverse e complementari e ad un’accurata conoscenza del territorio che Arbaspàa riesce ad offrire ai suoi ospiti soggiorni unici.

Lo staff, che arriva a 25 persone in alta stagione, oltre che dai fondatori e titolari Eugenio Bordoni e Catherina Unger è composto da addetti al front e back office, ai check in, al marketing, alla comunicazione e ai social newtork, alle pulizie e da guide autorizzate; a questi, si aggiungono i ragazzi del negozio Explora di Manarola, gestito dall’azienda e specializzato nel materiale tecnico per il trekking, il mare e il trail running.

Peculiarità dello staff di Arbaspàa è l’essere poliglotta: di nazionalità italiana ed estera, è in grado di rispondere ai propri clienti in lingue diverse: italiano, inglese, francese, tedesco, spagnolo, portoghese, cinese, norvegese e ungherese. Non esiste successo se non c’è valorizzazione dei talenti individuali nell’ottica di un progetto comune: è questa la convinzione dei due titolari, che in questo modo sono riusciti a creare un gruppo affiatato ed efficiente. Scopri con noi chi sono i membri dello staff e i loro ruoli!

Eugenio Bordoni

Ceo & Founder, B2C division Manager

Catherina Unger

CEO & Founder, B2B division manager, photography

Steffi Maerklstetter Bonciani

Sales, MICE & groups

Veronica Bulessi

Private and tailor made experiences

Rosalba Carlino

Sales, Marketing, Graphics

Ilaria Capellini

Apartments, tours, boats

Heidi Pfeiffer

Environmental and hiking guide, creation and management of groups Wandern und Wein

Anna Ieracitano

Accounting

Carlotta Bonsegna

Tour booking management, OTA portals management, agency contracts

Alessia Barilari

Hiking guide, Wandern und Wein and Self guided hikings booking dep

Valentina Grimaldi

Back office apartments, site management, contracts with agencies, online promotion

Giulia Viviani

Back office apartments, site management, contracts with agencies, online promotion

Ermira Vogli

Explora Trekking shop by Arbaspàa

Marco Ranzani

Customer reception, facility statistics, warehouse coordination