He is 45 years outdated, has a great job and a cheerful life in Washington, however Ari Baetiong, an American of Filipino dad and mom, needs to depart his “consolation zone” behind and transfer to a different nation as a digital nomad. In his nonetheless incipient seek for a brand new vacation spot, two Andalusian cities particularly attracted his curiosity: Malaga and Seville.
Born in New York, Baetiong has been working within the US capital for 9 years as a marketing consultant specializing in digital transformation in a multinational and his shoppers embody startups and enormous firms from all over the world.
“That is why how I work is extra essential than the place I work,” this Filipino-American skilled, who has beforehand lived in cities similar to Miami, London, Madrid and Barcelona, advised EFE, the place he studied a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) on the ESADE enterprise faculty.
Ari Baetiong is married and has a profitable skilled profession within the US, the place he has labored for firms similar to Newmark or EY, however for a while now he has had the thought of beginning a brand new life out of the country, and Spain seems as a degree highlighted on the radar.
The marketing consultant, who speaks good Spanish, is in love with this nation, which he is aware of fairly properly: he has lived for a number of months in Barcelona and Madrid, the place he took a course on the Autonomous University (UAM), and has visited a number of communities as a vacationer. His thought, he says, “has at all times been to return to Spain”, and particularly to Andalusia, whose tradition and historical past have him from a really younger age.
He has not but determined the place he wish to settle, however he opts for a metropolis “not as huge” because the European capitals by which he has lived. There Seville and Malaga seem as distinguished choices, cities which have been consolidated in current months as a vacation spot for the so-called digital nomads.
The significance of worldwide connections
Baetiong additionally needs his new metropolis of residence to get pleasure from good connections, and there Malaga takes the lead over Seville, since from June 2023 the American firm United Airlines will function a direct flight between the capital of Malaga and New York 3 times per week. Malaga has additionally been working for a very long time to attain a continuous air hyperlink between the Costa del Sol and Miami, the place the Baetiong political household lives.
“Granada, for instance, is a metropolis that I really like, however I could not go and stay there as a result of the worldwide connections will not be good,” says the interviewee, who additionally values having buddies or acquaintances in his host metropolis to assist him within the touchdown and lengthen the community of contacts.
And right here Seville comes out on high, as Baetiong has buddies on this metropolis, whose City Council has just lately launched a platform -La Fábrica de Sevilla- to draw rising expertise firms and digital nomads, for which it’s planning promotional campaigns and has created an workplace to assist them with administrative procedures.
The final goal of La Fábrica de Sevilla is to advise and pave the best way for certified professionals similar to Baetiong to settle within the metropolis, who’s at the moment affected by quite a few doubts in regards to the change he plans to make, similar to what papers he wants to ascertain himself in Spain, what taxes they’re paid, whether it is essential to take out personal medical insurance coverage or whether it is troublesome for a foreigner to accumulate a house.
The Malaga City Council additionally launched the MalagaWorkBay platform final yr, which presents all of the related data {that a} teleworker must settle within the metropolis and be capable of work or begin a enterprise.
“I wish to inform myself properly earlier than coming as a result of I’ve many doubts,” says the marketing consultant, who additionally needs his new metropolis to be open and cosmopolitan and provide a robust technological ecosystem and a large cultural and leisure provide, one thing that he at the moment does least in Washington.
In this sense, Málaga is extra enticing to him, because of its highly effective expertise park, the Málaga TechPark, and the arrival of huge multinationals similar to Google, Oracle or Vodafone. “I’ve been working with shoppers like them for fifteen years, that is my world,” he underlines.
Baetiong assures that he’s nonetheless in “a primary part” of learning what may very well be his subsequent vacation spot, analyzing the professionals and cons that every metropolis presents him, however one factor is obvious, and that’s that he needs to depart his “consolation zone” behind. and stay a “new expertise” personally and professionally that might materialize in 2023 or 2024.
Aware of the increase in distant work, particularly after the pandemic, the Andalusian Government has additionally launched a marketing campaign to advertise this neighborhood as a vacation spot for digital nomads.
There are many who’re already responding to this initiative of the Andalusian authorities, which is aimed toward relocated senior managers and people below 40 years of age, amongst others, who can telework from international locations apart from these of their firm.