After analyzing what would be our ideal customer, we decided to work with the Hotel Ongi as we saw that we could make many improvements in this small business.

Is a small hotel that offers a friendly and familiar service in an incomparable place. It is located in Oñati, in the Basque Country, north of Spain.

At first, and after having analyzed all the information we had at our disposal, we decided to meet with the owners of this small hotel. They accepted from the first moment and informed us of all the data that was not available on their website or on the internet. We talked about the target audience, the history of the hotel… we talked about many things. We also verified that all the information we had was correct or not.

After that first meeting with them, we as a team made several proposals to carry out in the hotel, since the owners were open to any help. When all the proposals were well received we had a second meeting with them to show them how we could help them. They told us if it was possible to take instead of one aspect, to take two. We accepted without any doubt, since this was our first real project, and we were very motivated and eager to work.

They told us that they needed help in two of the areas we had proposed. On the one hand they wanted to increase their presence in the networks. And on the other hand they wanted to make the hotel and bar more environmentally friendly.

In the case of making the hotel and bar more environmentally friendly, we analyzed what the current situation was. The hotel recycles in 5 different garbage cans all its waste, so we knew that the recycling part was fine, and that we couldn’t do more for that part. But when we had the opportunity to go to the hotel physically to see the different things they offered, we saw that everything that was put in the hotel bathrooms for example was made of plastic.

After many meetings between us, and after having analyzed different ways to change that, we decided to opt for shampoo and solid soaps. These soaps can be easily disinfected (because we also had to take into account the COVID19 pandemic) and they do not contain any plastic, 0 percent. On the other hand, we also analyzed the case of the toothbrush and the toothpaste. Before, all of these contained a lot of plastic. For this, we opted for bamboo toothbrushes and toothpaste. With this we were able to bring the percentage of plastic in the bathrooms down to 0 percent.

We also had the opportunity to see how our suggestions look in the hotel.

We also saw that we had to give importance to the color. The logo of the hotel is blue. And all the bathrooms have that blue color. On the contrary, the toothpaste, the brush and all the soaps didn’t contain any blue. So we decided that all the material had to contain some blue, in order to have that link to the hotel’s branding and logo colors.

This hotel also has a bar, and in this bar all the coffees were served with sugar bags that were made of plastic. We also shuffled around different options for this. Our first proposal was to put a vase with sugar and have everyone pour in the amount they needed. This way, we would not have any residue. But soon after thinking about that proposal, we realized that it was not possible because of COVID19. After thinking about more options, we finally opted for the sugars that came wrapped in paper. Paper can be recycled 100% easier than sugar. So we thought this option was very good. This change has already been made in the bar, and we are very happy about it.

To finish with making the hotel and bar more environmentally friendly, we decided that before showing these proposals to the hotel owners, it was an interesting idea to have a meeting with a environmental group. So, Irati (Head of Analytics) had a personal meeting with the environmental group of the town which is called Oñati Zero Zabor. We showcased to them our sustainability ideas for the Ongi Hotel: replacing all plastic products with bamboo and usage of solid soaps. After having analyzed everything, they gave their official approval of the project.

You can see the second part of the project and everything related to social media here.

Finally, we arranged another meeting and presented our project and all the suggestions to the owners of the hotel.

The result was very very good. They told us that they are going to make all the changes we had proposed. They were delighted, and told us that they wanted to continue working with us. They also asked us for the logo of our startup to put on the door of the hotel, with all the collaborators they have.

We couldn’t be happier with the result and the final project, as it was a real project, and it was a great start as a startup.

Angeliki Kyriazi, Anastasiia Shvetc, Irati Barrena Bolinaga and Katerina Tsiakaraki

Our final project — re: Construction — ONGI HOTEL was originally published in AD DISCOVERY — CREATIVITY Stories by ADandPRLAB on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our first project started literally on the first day we met at class when we hardly even knew each other. At the beginning we were five, there was a boy on our team who had to leave the project. After the formation of our original 5 member group when the class ended we decided to go for a coffee and discuss a little about what our name will be.

We spent a lot of time brainstorming/ writing/ erasing ideas. Anastasiia who later became head of design suggested the first useful idea. She said to use the (re:), like an answer on an email. “We create an answer for you” said Anastasiia. Little did we know that that phrase would stay with us throughout almost every presentation/ project. Then we “played” around with words we wanted to use the verb “create” but we all agreed that it was too obvious and made some research and found a more intriguing synonym “construction”. Finally our full name was born re: Construction.

After that we left thinking that we have a lot of meetings ahead and we were right but not exactly how we envisioned them. Circumstances (lockdown, quarantine) didn’t allow in person gatherings. But we were all too invested to give up the project and didn’t let that hinder us. After countless Skype meetings, texting, challenges, ideas we present to you our journey.

Do you want to know what happened next? Stay tuned!

Angeliki Kyriazi, Katerina Tsiakaraki, Anastasiia Shvetc, Irati Barrena Bolinaga

The Beginning of re: Construction was originally published in AD DISCOVERY — CREATIVITY Stories by ADandPRLAB on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.