We are three tour guides with extensive experience and different backgrounds that complement each other. We started as freelancers and have had the immense good fortune to work for different companies and travellers of all types, conditions and origins. We realised that the current tourism market is quite homogeneous in its services and that many times it does not adapt to people’s needs or realities.
Society is very diverse. There are people who have reduced mobility, travel alone, travel with their family, come from different beliefs, have different sensory or psychological abilities, seek history, seek culture, seek to respect the local population, sometimes even avoid large groups and overcrowded city centres.
Also, in our daily work we have encountered products designed by companies far from the real context that did not take into account the opening hours of museums, places of interest, temples, restaurants, daylight hours in winter or simply limited daylight hours, leading travellers to rush from one place to another in a huge hurry.
We do not want that.
We want everybody to enjoy without stress or worries.
That was the reason why we founded Curiositas Mundus. And these are some of the compromises that are written in our Foundation Charter:
Article 3. Objectives of the company:
To design, organize and distribute tourism services focused on the culture and heritage of Belgium with the utmost respect for the customer, the local population and the environment.
To promote active inclusion and full participation of people with different needs in cultural and tourist activities.
To be a reference for and collaborate with European, national, regional and local public authorities, as well as private agents and providers, in the promotion of cultural tourism and responsible tourism in Belgium.
To create tourism models based on the principles of sustainability and responsibility.
To prevent and combat racism, xenophobia, homophobia and other forms of intolerance through interreligious and intercultural activities related to walking tours, collaboration with museums and other tourist activities.
To contribute to the maintenance and protection of Belgium’s heritage, cultural and natural assets.
To promote equality between women and men through tourism, cultural and heritage activities that make visible the history and current situation of women in science, technology, history, architecture, philosophy, literature and in all aspects of society.
To assess current cultural, economic and social issues affecting the travel and tourism industry.
To offer activities, mainly tours, to people from all economic and social classes, thanks to the financing of public funds.
To become a reference in the local community, ensuring the success of conferences and workshops on responsible tourism and Belgian culture.
To add value to the cultural tourism and responsible tourism sector.
To always adapt to the latest information technology systems, work procedures and environmental issues for tourism services and products.
To educate and communicate information on travel and culture through different platforms.
To promote the official languages of Belgium, as well as the other languages present in Belgium through immigration, with tourism, cultural and heritage activities.
To collaborate in transnational exchange of experiences and know-how in relation to the tourism sector and its management models.
To support networking among cultural and creative organizations and policy-makers related to the development of the cultural and responsible tourism sector.
These claims may seem overly ambitious. We believe that they are simply the natural way forward for tourism in the 21st century.
“Madrileño” by birth (back in ’82) and by heart, I have been doing volunteer and social work for as long as I can remember. After graduating as a Leisure and Camp Leader, I led workshops and summer camps with children of all ages: from 2 to 99 years old. At the same time, in order to earn a living, my salary came from other sources: almost 10 years working in telecommunications.
I arrived in Brussels in 2014 escaping the crisis of values that was hitting Spain so hard and soon after I started working as a tour guide in different Belgian cities. Falling in love with Brussels, I kept expanding my knowledge in this job that combines several of my passions. You can find me in the streets of Belgium communicating the wonders that I have previously discovered. I hope to be able to pass on you some of my passion for this country, its culture and its traditions.
— Samuel Villena, founder and tour guide.
At some point in your life you inevitably ask yourself the question “Will what I am doing / learning lead to a conclusion?” And the answer is always “Yes” even when you do not see it. It is only necessary to have a little more patience and always go one day after the other, a path of kilometres that starts with the first hesitant steps. In a world in which diversity is penalised and straight paths without any detours overvalued, my life has been based on enjoying what made me feel good and rejecting what made my days and other people’s days unfair and empty.
That conviction that life is not one, but many, is what has brought me to a point where I have a Master’s Degree in Social Communication, a PhD in Information Technologies and Structures, I have been a semi-professional football goalkeeper, a kung-fu student and a kyudo archer, I have travelled around Europe and North Africa giving lectures, courses and seminars, I have implemented empowerment processes for workers in private companies, I have chaired non-profit associations, I have fought within regional and national trade unions, I have worked with people with diverse physical and psychological needs and, above all, I have learned to tell stories. Very nice ones. Of all kinds and conditions. But the most important, stories about making the world a better place. All this knowledge has led me to create this company. A knowledge that I want to share with everyone who is willing to listen.
— Miriam Meda, founder and tour guide.
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— Laura Cueto, founder and tour guide.
