We liked Stendhapp's project right away: making people discover Italy's immense cultural heritage through an app inspired by the famous Stendhal syndrome.
The founders of the startup, who had already made a web app as a 'proof of concept,' wanted to take a quantum leap so they initially asked us to develop native versions of Stendhapp for iOS and Android, to make the user's experience of navigating through tens of thousands of points of interest as natural and quick as possible, so as not to detract from the beauty of the places.

A huge heritage

The app, which is available for free on the Google Play and App stores, allows users to choose from 19 categories of local beauty: monuments, churches, palaces, museums, as well as hamlets, monumental trees, food and wine producers, literary quotes, film sets, cultural events, and historic stores. The user is geolocated and encouraged to find out what there is to see nearby, to stimulate a form of tourism and discovery of the territory that is nearby and therefore it’s more sustainable. A specific user generated content section to input missing places has been added to the app, where the missing place can be located through a simple long press on the map.

Working alongside this female-led, socially-oriented startup, has made us aware of the enormous opportunity we have in Italy, precisely because of our widespread and unique artistic and cultural heritage: according to banca Ifis, the Italian Economy of Beauty is worth about 500 billion euros, 26 percent of the national GDP. And so, we said to ourselves, it's worth putting in the effort to make better use of what we have and grow our Country, we need to bring technology into play and arm ourselves with great patience.

Embrace the challenge

That’s how we, at GFM Group, decided to become Stendhapp technology partner, working alongside the startup in its new technological innovation challenges that use Machine Learning and Augmented Reality to engage more and better the cultural tourists and to grow destination marketing initiatives on the ground, especially in lesser-known places. Stendhapp never stops and neither do we. Why?

Because we believe in the project and work with our hearts as well as our brains!