From Pro-Continental title-sponsor to BIKE AID
Corendon Airlines has been the title sponsor of a Dutch Pro-Continental team around Mathieu van der Poel for the past years. After their collaboration ended, the company started looking for new opportunities and came across BIKE AID. The airline from Turkey, based in Antalya has further subsidiaries in the Netherlands as well asMalta and is constantly expanding its network across Europe and is already represented at 20 German airports.
With the start of Tour of Antalya, Corendon and BIKE AID will start their partnership for the 2020 season, in order to take further steps together in the upcoming years.
Corendon sees opportunity in BIKE AID to increase brand awareness in Germany
“With our commitment, we want to increase the visibility of our brand in Germany. BIKE AID is particularly suitable to reach that goal as they are not only internationally very successful and have a globe-spanning race-schedule comparable to that of a Pro Continental team, but like no other cycling team BIKE AID offers a wide portfolio of add-ons that significantly increase the value and scope of our sponsorship ” said Yıldıray Karaer CEO of Corendon.
“BIKE AID arouses curiosity with its gripping stories from unknown regions of our globe, stands for sustainable social commitment and, with its community, is the only professional team that creates the authentic connection between professional sport and the large mass of enthusiastic recreational cyclists” added Yıldıray Karaer.
For BIKE AID, the commitment means a further upvalue of the team. There are also many synergies for both parties. BIKE AID delivers suitable content for in-flight magazines, pictures of exotic destinations for social media channels of the airline, but also the visibility of the Corendon brand through its presence at major races in Germany and through the community and media presence. BIKE AID athletes can also benefit from the airline's network during their numerous trips to either training camps or races.
Corenden and Ursapharm - two international companies
“Corendon's commitment is another important step for us to develop our project. Together with Ursapharm, Corendon is the second international player that sees the potential in the collaboration with BIKE AID to achieve their communication goals in Germany and abroad. Corendon was the title sponsor of a successful Pro Continental team until 2019. A change to our team shows how valuable our team now is and lets us look to the future with confidence,” said team manager Timo Schäfer.
BIKE AID's connection to Turkey has also grown in recent years. The team was already at the start of the first Tour of Antalya 2018, BIKE AID won the overall ranking of the Tour of Mersin in 2019, sprinter Lucas Carstensen also won the Alanya Grand Prix.
German-Turkish cooperation
“Last but not least, we have learned to love the country and its people through our participation in races in Turkey in recent years. We are therefore very pleased that we are also maintaining a piece of German-Turkish partnership, the friendship of two countries that have been so deep rooted” added Schäfer.
The team's athletes already traveled to Antalya with Corendon Airlines from Düsseldorf. In the coming days, BIKE AID will compete with World Tour and Pro Continental teams at the Tour of Antalya along the Turkish Riviera. The race is classified for the first time with Category 1 of the World Cycling Federation.