Tour Manager: Traveling Enriches the Soul
Giorgio Flaccavento, who has led tours for 12 years, tells TPR listeners why he views his work as a way to share culture and help travelers grow.
By Alessia Romano ·
Giorgio Flaccavento views travel as a method to enrich the soul and help participants grow, according to an interview conducted by Texas Public Radio reporter Nathan Cone.
Flaccavento, 52, has managed tours for Collette for the past 12 years. He recently led a group of TPR listeners, along with participants from Missouri and Rhode Island, on the company's Spotlight on Tuscany tour.
The group used the town of Montecatini Terme as their home base. From there, they traveled to Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and San Gimignano. The itinerary combined guided excursions with free time for exploring local culture.
Flaccavento did not start his career in tourism. He worked in the marketing department of a publishing house in Sicily for 14 years. The company produced books and folders about art and tourism for international exhibitions.
His job ended when the publisher, who was 67 at the time, struggled to adapt to the digital economy and closed the business. Flaccavento was fired along with the rest of the staff.
He had previously arranged small regional trips for friends and locals in Sicily as a hobby. After losing his marketing position, he decided to pursue tour management professionally. He found his first year difficult because the industry relied on recommendations rather than experience. He began by covering emergency vacancies before securing regular assignments.
Flaccavento specializes in food tours in his home city of Palermo. He has led these tours for 10 years and associates local food culture with the broader history of a place. He aims to keep his delivery conversational rather than academic, noting that travelers want to discover how people live rather than just receive facts.
He told Cone that he interacts with different groups to understand their reactions and adjust his approach. Flaccavento said his goal is to make people happy, which requires him to be happy with them. He noted that Collette offers 20 different itineraries in Italy, advising travelers to choose a route that matches their specific interests in culture, food, or environment.
