1. Who are you?
This sounds like it should be an easy enough question to answer, but it is actually very difficult. If you Google me you’ll find more anwers.

I would say that I am a cosmopolitan citizen who wants to make a positive impact in the world. Events in my life encouraged me to be extremely creative and to think for myself. I am originally Slovak and grew up in the old Austro-Hungarian empire, moving to Vienna many years ago. During the last five years I also lived in Marbella, southern Spain. I am also a Spanish resident, even though I now spend most of my time in Vienna. In addition to my main role as a full-time mother, I am an athlete, holistic therapist, former UNIDO staff member and blogger. During the last years, I also created a business concept with my first website-blog, The Best of Marbella. Many friends and business acquaintances would generally describe me as a dynamic and ambitious businesswoman, who doesn´t give up on her dreams.

2. What do you like about what you do?
Public relations, which is very much part of my work: The Best of Marbella blog-website is driven by my love for Marbella and its people. I like to interact and communicate in different languages and express my creativity, touching peoples’ lives in positive ways.

3. What don’t you like about what you do?
Practically nothing, although I have to say that in the beginning writing blogs and updating the website was time consuming. That was really the only challenge; however, I have a very supportive team and associate network, especially my friend-web designer and artist Syl Chad who helps me enormously. There are so many positive aspects of my work that I always prefer to look at the bright side of life …

4. Please tell us about your blog ‘The best of Marbella’ and your aims with it.
The Best of Marbella is much more than an interactive blog-website. It is a unique marketing and promotional concept, one of the leading references about Marbella, the Costa del Sol and beyond. Even during the initial stage The Best of Marbella is listed as one of the top 101 blogs to watch in 2009, according to the WE Magazine in the USA.

We are still developing our project, however, already in this initial stage it is visited by more than 90 countries in the world. Please read about our success story on our blog.

The Best of Marbella mainly promotes the multi-cultural and cosmopolitan lifestyle of Marbella, as well as selected businesses, properties, dining, nightlife, arts and cultural venues, health and beauty, golf clubs, local clubs and associations, events and in addition, business categories from A-Z, linked to an important and thoughtfully selected brand name: The Best of …

The Best of Marbella is also an ever expanding network of local and international professionals. We are associated with many top quality professionals, our associated partners such as CCG, C+Golf, 4Business Global Network, Marbella Dutch Business Club, Asociacion Francofonos, Business and Lifestyle Network, Concordia, Society Living Magazine, The Sentinella Costa West, Blue Sky Luxury Car Hire, Manifesto Design, Smithwood Productions and many more …

5. What are the benefits of a membership?
There are several subscription options and many benefits. Anyone interested in the membership should contact: maria@thebestofmarbella.com. We promote and support charities free of charge and with other colleagues from press and media we offer an exchange of services which is a win-win situation for all.

Benefits:

• Top Google ranking of any business or event when listed with us
• Local and international “visibility” in more than 90 countries around the world giving your business or event massive exposure
• We created strategic alliances with members and associates so that all businesses can also be promoted through a multitude of other websites and blogs that are inter-linked with us
• We promote our members through press and media that are associated with us and by personally introducing our members to each other
• We send free events and business newsletters to 20,000 entries from our database and in addition regular press releases (blog posts) to our ever-expanding social media network. For example, The Best of Marbella can be found on:
  www.thebestofmarbella.com
  thebestofmarbella.blogspot.com
  The Best of Marbella @ Twitter
  The Best of Marbella @ Zimbio
  The Best of Marbella @ YouTube
  The Best of Marbella @ Facebook
  The Best of Marbella @ linkedin
  and many other social and exclusive networks …
• Being promoted by us, your business or activity will become an essential part of our success story as one of the top 101 blogs/websites to watch in 2009, acknowledged by WE Magazine in the USA.
• If suitable, we include businesses and their activities in the promotional packages or events that we promote. “The best of Marbella” can offer and suggest holiday or luxury packages” such as golf breaks, luxury accommodation, luxury car hire, boat or yacht cruises, luxury shopping, cultural excursions, beauty, fitness and anti-stress holidays, adventurous holidays, property investment and corporate holidays, single or family holidays, weddings packages or cultural and business exchange with other places. The Best of Marbella is a franchising concept that will connect many places and countries in the world. Our first franchising destination is The Best of Vienna blog and we are planning to do the same with Moscow and many other attractive destinations in the world.
• Member to member discounts and special offers

During the current economic crisis, many places, especially tourist destinations like Marbella, need promotion and connection with other cities from abroad. Knowing both Marbella and Vienna and speaking many languages, I am in a unique position to connect people and places in many ways.

Marbella has the best climate in Europe and in places like Vienna, where the winters can be too long, cold and grey, escape to sunny Marbella even for a weekend can be uplifting and refreshing.

Another goal is to strengthen the inter-cultural and business exchange between Marbella and Vienna. There are so many talented musicians, artists and singers and most of them need promotion. For example it would be fantastic to invite the Wiener Philharmoniker orchestra or Die Wiener Sängerknaben (The Vienna Boys Choir) to Marbella or, conversely, to move productions and artists from Marbella to Vienna. Since I returned to Vienna, I reconnected with the local, international and diplomatic communities in Vienna and have been discovering new venues, clubs and luxury networks that inspired me to many new ideas.

There are many artists, dancers and musicians in Marbella like Stephen Lloyd Morgan that would be delighted to perform live concerts in the Grand Hotel Wien or The Ring, Vienna’s Casual Luxury Hotel. On the other side, one of the most important events in Marbella that visitors from Vienna and abroad should not miss is Marbella´s International Arts Festival. I am convinced that the Department of Tourism in Marbella and Vienna would also support this kind of inter-cultural and business exchange.

Furthermore, Marbella has so much to offer, not only because of its fantastic climate, beautiful beaches, world class golf courses, delicious food and exciting shopping, parties and nightlife, but also because it boasts some of the most prestigeous and luxurious properties in Europe. I also highly recommend anyone who wants to learn Spanish to visit Marbella. In the next months, we will include many properties on the Best of Marbella, as well as numerous golf courses, hotels and restaurants, to offer our readers the best choices. So, please check the site regularly for updates or even better, keep up to date via a subscription to our free events and business newsletters.

6. Were you working with other blogs and if yes, which ones and why?
This is the first blog I started a year ago when I recognized the opportunity to meet people´s needs by offering a unique promotional concept. We are currently preparing the Best of Vienna blog to connect the two blogs and places in many ways and initiate an inter-cultural and business exchange.

7. Please provide us with your TOP 5 for Marbella
It is very difficult to choose from so many beautiful places in Marbella, but my favourite place is the Paseo Maritimo (seaside promenade) ideal for walking, running and enjoying the warm weather. You can also try delicious food and Spanish wine in numerous chiringuitos. My favourite beach restaurant is Trocadero Playa. Everyone should visit the old Town of Marbella (Orange Square), which is very special and Puerto Banus promenade where you can admire the exclusive yachts and luxury cars, enjoy shopping in some of the most popular boutiques and visit some of the numerous restaurants and bars. If you like golf, Marbella Golf club is one of the best golf courses on “Costa del Golf”. When it comes to beaches and beach clubs, I like the Buddha Beach in Puerto Banus. My favourite restaurants: Villa Tiberio, Sol i Luna, Salotto, Passion Cafe and many more. You can find details about all these places on the Best of Marbella blog in the Dining and Nightlife section.

8. Restaurants/bars/shops/hotels/sightseeing
There are many wonderful restaurants, bars, shops, hotels and sightseeing trips that will be included on our blog-website soon. There is so much to do and see, including the beautiful white villages and places close to Marbella like Ojen, Monda, Guaro (with its Luna Mora festival), Ronda, Gaucin and El Chorro. Further afield Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz and Gibraltar await the curious visitor. The best way to find all the information is to check the existing blog articles and subscribe to our free events and business newsletters that will be sent out as of January.

9. Any comments you want to share with us?
I would like to emphasize the importance of blogs and social media in marketing any business. A lot of people don’t yet appreciate the importance and significance of blogs, so here is a simple explanation why The Best of Marbella is using blogs to promote its members and why it became so successful so far:

1. Blogs are a fantastic marketing and networking tool provided by Google. They are free and can be used in many different ways, depending on individual creativity, knowledge and expertise. In our case, it is a basic tool where every promotion starts.
2. Google invests billions of dollars to develop their software technology that we use
3. Blogs are the fastest growing medium of communication for businesses and individuals and have rapidly become influential components of the Internet. Their importance will grow for some time to come
4. Though blogs have a social function in the first instance, they have also become very popular because of their effectiveness in SEO (blogs are getting the kind of traffic that static websites can only dream of – even without SEO tactics).
5. We include blog links in all our social media networks and profiles including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other social and business tools and networks
6. In our case, our blog is interactive, constantly changing and the most important part of our website www.thebestofmarbella.com that we use for our PR and marketing campaigns and to connect with people locally and globally.

Edited by Manifesto Design.