Alda Valentini: We Want More Nigerians To Explore Europe 

Alda Valentini, Brand Manager of Podium Tour Operator, speaks about the services offered by her company, her impression about Nigerian tour operators, among others. Charles Ajunwa brings excerpts

Can you tell us about your company, Podium Tour Operator?

We are based in Italy and we have offices also in Spain, France, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, all the nations of Europe. Mainly we tailor-made all tours in order to customise all the needs of the final clients, the tourists. We do groups starting from 10 people and above and we can offer all kinds of services, starting from transfer upon arrival, then hotel accommodation and sightseeing tours, restaurants with special dinner or tasting and entries in museums. Any kind of sightseeing tour and experience you want to try all over Europe.  Our main job is to give you an experience. We organise religious tours such as pilgrimages, for example this year in Rome is the year of Jubilee. Or we organise cultural tours visiting more than one country, all the cities of Europe: Paris, London, Barcelona, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Rome, Florence, Milan for example. And then we organise also school tours especially from Nigeria because there are also colleges or universities also schools’ trips to Europe and they want to do an experience of culture in Europe. So we can provide all these kinds of services starting from three-star hotel accommodation upon five stars and super luxury tours. We can follow any kind of budget for this kind of holiday.

Talking about budgets, what are we looking at for group of 10 coming from Africa. Are there some criteria?

Let’s say that if you have a request, we work only business-to-business to business means that our clients are travel agents or tour operators from Nigeria or Africans that want to bring their clients to Europe. They ask us to build an itinerary and we do this tailor-made. This is unique. Uniqueness is the main goal that we want to achieve. I mean if a travel agent asks us for a group, this is the only group they can do. We don’t work in a standard method. Everything is tailor-made. This tour will be unique.

They want to travel, for example, next year or from the 10th of January till the 20th of January, we organise this tour with these dates. If they want to change, they want to do more than one country, we can organise tours with more than one nation following their needs. Of course, there is a big team behind this Podium, tour operator, and we can suggest you giving all the information that you are looking for in order to offer the best trip ever. We also follow budget standards. Sometimes we have a group with a low budget, so we work for good and nice hotels. For example, a three-star hotel. Or if you have a higher budget, we can work with a four-star hotel, a five-star hotel. Price depends also on the accommodation. Centrally located, a little bit far away. Then we can provide bus transportation to reach, of course, the very heart of the cities. There are really a lot of possibilities to create  together a tour and a trip in Europe.

How long have you been promoting tourism in Africa and what has been your experience?

We are a group of more than 100 people and we were established in 1991. That means we are more than 34 years old. We have a wide experience. We started to work with Africa about 10 years ago with many nations of Africa. So this is our first fair in Lagos (21st Akwaaba African Travel Market) because some clients suggest us to participate. So far, we saw there is more interest in Europe than ever. So people want to travel. It’s easier to obtain visas for Europe. I think we are a good partner to give all the services needed for being safe, happy and of course with a great tour.

This is your first time in Nigeria. Can you tell us your impression so far?

The people are very friendly, very competent, meaning that they know what they are selling. They need only a good partner on-site. They are looking for someone like us looking in Europe because of course it’s better having someone that deals everything. And they don’t have the knowledge of course to book, to ask, to have all the information.

 Of course being a business to business operator, we work with confidential price, with good rates because we do groups. Nigerian travel agents are very very interested in Poland.

What would you be telling your would-be clients from Nigeria?

I will tell them that it’s time to start to work together and to explore Europe also from Nigerian people and talk more about tourism because sometimes in Nigeria they don’t talk a lot about tourism. But we have a lot of things to tell also to the people that want to travel, want to visit the world. We are here for this and I think there is a big interest in Nigeria.

 What can you say about 21th Akwaaba African Travel Market?

Akwaaba, they are very well organised. I was in contact always by WhatsApp with Debbie, one of the organisers. She is very kind and always at disposal, Saturday, Sunday, during the evening, during the night, always to answer our questions because you need to be always ready, ready to answer. So this we appreciate it.