Grand Voyage Head on Realizing Your Ambition through Your Own Business

Translated

Grand Voyage is a tourist company that offers customers tours worldwide. At present, the founder of the company guides the company on her own, however, as she says, she neutralizes her heavy schedule with a love of what she does.

We met that founder, Nutsa Durglishvili, to find out how to start a tourism business, how to manage the competition on the tourism market and how to become successful.

How did you start your tourism business?

Our company was officially launched on December 15, 2017, with the main direction of outgoing tourism - we take tours abroad anywhere in the world. It gives us a chance to realize our ideas, opportunities and ambitions. It’s no easy task starting your own business from zero, but by analyzing the successes and risks correctly, results are possible, and these results depend entirely on hard work, skills and knowledge.

What should we know when we are in the tourist business?

As our business is a field of service, quality is important, as it is in every business. Our company offers quality to customers, a crucial fact for me as the founder. We fulfill all customer requirements maximally.

What services does Grand Voyage offer?

We offer customers tours in any direction and aim to make our tours special. We try to make the journey maximally more intuitive and interesting to users. From the beginning, this was my goal - to create tours that are not copy-paste. We offer people places that are not well known, but which are very interesting to visit in order for them to discover existing traditions, culture, history. We make sure they come away with as much as possible from their experience with us, regardless of the length of their trip.

What should tourism companies focus on?

Based on my experience, the products that we sell must be of quality. No matter what you sell, even if it’s travel insurance, a ticket or a budget tour. All our customers are very valuable to us.

What is Grand Voyage’s value policy?

Any business is primarily focused on sales, of course, and so are we. However, our prices are affordable because we try to minimize costs. Despite there being a lot of competition, I still risked this policy to please customers. I seek customer satisfaction in everything I do.

What did you pay attention to as a customer before founding a tourist company?

For me, as a customer, communication had great importance, so I make sure to implement that in my own work, readily exchanging information with customers and staying up-to-date.

How many people are employed in Grand Voyage?

There are only 5-6 people in the company, but at this point I have to do everything- touring, advertising, service delivery, communication, and more. Of course, it's pretty hard work, but loving my job is very helpful. I enjoy the hard work and seeing the results.

How can Grand Voyage beat the competition?

We all know what how competitive the tourist sphere is. But our prices are affordable, so we beat the competition with low prices and high quality.

One of the most important features for any tourist company is location and strong social networks.

Currently, we are located in King David's common work space KD4US. I’m in a very comfortable and positive environment, working in an area with other amazing teams. I don’t feel I need a separate office: this space is absolutely enough and ideal for work.

Do you sell your products remotely?

Of course, social networks are exactly for this, and we use them to notify customers regularly about our tours and services. There are people whom I’ve never met and yet have sold so much to, remotely. This is a comfortable service: we have the opportunity to provide customers with any service without their visiting the office.

What about your future plans for Grand Voyage?

At this stage, we’re in the process of development and plan to add a lot more interesting tours, offering customers more interesting places- something we’re working on every day. We may well add to our team, too, as more hands are needed in our operations.

By Mariam Merabishvili