Marlene Merle was born in the German city of Marburg and, with studies of computing, He dedicated the first years of his professional career to the corporate sector. After having experienced stages of his youth in La Palma and Tenerife, came to Lanzarote ten years ago to join the agricultural company that his father ran.
In 2019 he assumed the reins of the family businessbut his passion for the sport made him realize the absence of a platform digital that brought together the offer of outdoor activities in Lanzarote.
At the beginning of 2025 he decides to change his career path and dedicate himself one hundred percent to the birth of Bentythe first technological intermediation platform of active tourism on the island.
The project has won both the award of Startup Impulse of the Chamber of Commerce of Lanzarote and La Graciosaas well as the Innovation Award granted by Charter 100 Canary Islands and the Government of the Canary Islands.
We exclude activities that are not in accordance with the protection of the territory
Benty connects the traveler with deleven local suppliers selected by their excellenceand is financed by a commission on the final sale price to the public.
“We exclude activities that do not comply with the protection of the territory. It is something very important for the brand,” Merle emphasizes. Thus, Benty does not include activities with motor vehicles such as buggies o cochesfocusing its proposal on sports that depend on individual physical effort and resistance.
“I threw away a website worth 15,000 euros”
The technological development of the platform went through a definitive turning point in May of this year. The first version of the website, commissioned in 2024 to an outside agency while Merle was still running the agricultural company, was a investment of 15,000 euros that barely generated traction in its first months.
Everything changed when he participated as jury in it contest of entrepreneurship The Talenton. There, a group of young people of 18 and 19 years He presented in his presentation a portal web fully functional developed in just two hours using artificial intelligence tools.
“That same day I went home, it was Saturday, and I said: I’m going to make the new website. On Sunday I sat down with an AI application called Lovable, I threw away the initial page of 15,000 euros and launched the new website“, remember.
That decision completely transformed the scope of the business. Being optimized for Artificial Intelligence search engines, the platform began to receive users who plan their vacations by asking ChatGPT, Perplexity o Claude.
“It has been a game changer absolute; tourists who search through those engines find me because the platform is designed for them”, he emphasizes.
The Chamber of Commerce, combined sports and the leap beyond Lanzarote
In her business consolidation, Marlen especially highlights the role of the Lanzarote Chamber of Commerce through the Impulsa Startup program. “It was much more than an award. When I started I had little knowledge of how to structure a business and in the program I learned everything from the base; The mentors helped me redefine the journey and successfully go to market,” he shares.
The average profile of Benty users is a tourist about 35 years old, with a purchasing power above the averagecoming mainly from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France and the Nordic countries.
Far from marketing individual classes, the platform focuses on multi-day combined experiences: “We sell premium experiences; the average ticket per person is 300 euros because customers book tailored packages combining, for example, tennis and golf o various aquatic disciplines depending on the season,” he details.
Although Marlen personally serves clients in three languagesis currently working on integrating agents conversational IA to automate frequent queries and gain efficiency.
“We must adapt to the new era of digital searches with AI”
Benty’s vision is not limited to Lanzarote. The technological entrepreneur’s roadmap contemplates a first expansion to capital islands such as Tenerife and Gran Canariawith the long-term objective of positioning the brand in the main active tourism destinations on the continent European.
In parallel, the accumulated experience in generative positioning and artificial intelligence has opened a second professional path: consultancy and the training specialized.
Marlen teaches classes and conferences aimed at teaching tourism companies how to position yourself in the new AI engineswith appointments at international business schools such as Les Roches Marbella and projected collaborations with the Lanzarote Foreign Promotion Society (SPEL).
“The idea is share what you have learned and train the sports tourism sector on how to adapt to the new era of digital searches”, he concludes.
Source: www.lavozdelanzarote.com
