Guest Bio
Tamuna Tabidze is the Director of the local branch of international tourism holding Magic Travels, operating under the brand Magic Roads Georgia. Previously serving as Sales Manager, she has extensive experience in Business-to-Business sales and has led operations across Southern Europe, Latin America, North and Eastern Europe, the MICE sector, and the luxury travel market. With comprehensive knowledge of the Georgian hospitality industry, Tamuna has also worked at top international and local hotel brands in Georgia. She is highly skilled in sales, branding, operations management, event planning, international relations, and marketing, and is fluent in English, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese. An expert in intercultural communication, Tamuna brings deep insight and global perspective to Georgia’s growing tourism industry.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Tamuna about the unique tourism opportunities in Georgia. They explore the country’s rich history, deep-rooted hospitality, and vibrant culture, shedding light on why Georgia is quickly becoming a top destination for international travelers.
Tamuna shares her professional journey into the tourism industry, emphasizing the role of destination management companies (DMCs) like Magic Roads Georgia in crafting tailored, unforgettable travel experiences. She also touches on the safety of travel in Georgia, the ease of entry for international visitors, and the cultural nuances that make Georgian hospitality truly special. Listeners gain a behind-the-scenes look at the passion and teamwork that fuel Magic Roads Georgia’s client-focused approach.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Magic Roads Georgia focuses on creating memorable travel experiences.
- ✓ Georgia is a small country with a rich history and culture.
- ✓ The country is located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.
- ✓ Georgia is known for its hospitality and welcoming nature.
- ✓ Visa requirements for Georgia are minimal for many countries.
- ✓ Traveling between Georgia and its neighbors can be complex but is manageable.
- ✓ Tamuna’s passion for tourism stems from her childhood experiences.
- ✓ Post-Soviet Georgia has shaped the current tourism landscape.
- ✓ Cultural differences affect how hospitality is expressed in Georgia.
- ✓ Magic Roads Georgia has a dedicated team that values creativity and client satisfaction.
What You’ll Find on Magic Roads Georgia
- Bespoke travel planning tailored to client interests and group size
- In-depth local knowledge and expert-guided cultural experiences
- Luxury, adventure, and MICE travel services across Georgia
- Multi-language support and intercultural communication expertise
- Commitment to creativity, hospitality, and client satisfaction
- Strong international partnerships through the Magic Travels network
Learn more about Magic Roads Georgia and connect with Tamuna at:
https://www.magic-dmc.com/destinations/georgia
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:04.183)
Tamuna, back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. As many of you may know, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, that I am in Georgia, the country of Georgia. And shortly after I got here, I had the opportunity of meeting a couple of wonderful women. And I’ve got, I should preface a couple of wonderful women that work in the tourism industry here in Georgia. And one of them is Tamuna Tabidze
She is the director for Magic Roads Georgia. Tamuna, so nice to meet you. I’m not sure I’m saying your name completely correctly, so please say it once for our listeners so they can hear it the right way.
Tamuna Tabidze (00:44.134)
Good morning Jason, it’s very much pleasure to be with you today and happy to meet your listeners. My name is Tamuna Tabitze and I’m running the local travel DMC in Georgia.
Jason Elkins (00:58.091)
It is such, such a real pleasure to have you. When I first got to DeBlesia, I went up and met with you and Miriam at the office. And, and then later on you set up an opportunity for me to go out and visit some of the wine country with one of your, one of your drivers and just had a wonderful time. You guys have been so gracious. And I’d always heard that about Georgia. I said, you know, I’d heard that when you come to Georgia, people are, you know, you’re, you’re a guest and they’re going to treat you like a gift from God. And I appreciate the way that both of you have.
helped me experience the country. thank you for that. And now we get to learn all about you. I know you’re excited about this. I can see the look on your face. We’re going to do a couple of things. Let’s do this. I want to give our listeners kind of an idea of what is Magic Roads Georgia. And so let’s do that for a minute or two. And then we’re going to dig into your background and your story and your childhood and figure out how you got from where you are, where you are now. So what is Magic Roads?
Georgia.
Tamuna Tabidze (01:59.47)
Magic Road Georgia is a DMC that is proposing different kind of projects and different kind of tours in Georgia. So for us and for everybody, I think that the tourism is making people happy. So in every minute and every instant, whatever we do, we try to do this inspiration to make our clients and our travelers happy. And traveling around Georgia that has 3,000 years of statehood,
history, culture, UNESCO heritage because we are on crossroads of civilizations. With Magic Roads Georgia, you will have the opportunity to really deepen and go inside the country, have all these emotional experiences. It will be all curated, tailor-made, specially-sought itineraries for each and every client so that they get back to their countries excited, with full of memories, full of emotions, and that each client’s expectations
met the reality. So I think that this is what Magic is proposing to all other clients because we are a member of the cluster.
let’s say, of DMCs throughout the world. We have different offices in some of our destinations like Emirates, Oman, France, Armenia, Egypt. So we share one spirit on all our destinations. And with Magic Roads Georgia, be sure that you will have a very, really wonderful time in our global country.
Jason Elkins (03:38.531)
Seems like you’re very, very clear on what is Magic Roads Georgia. Thank you so much for sharing that. I do have a couple of questions, because I suspect maybe our listeners do as well. First of all, for those that are listening that aren’t familiar with the term DMC, it comes up quite often on the show, but maybe in your own words, help our listeners kind of understand what do you mean when you say DMC?
Tamuna Tabidze (03:45.121)
Sure.
Tamuna Tabidze (04:01.39)
So the DMC is destination management company. So it’s fully based on the destination. We’re taking care of building different products and proposals for the clients. We get together different products like hotel accommodation, transportation, different visits, activities, performances, or the workshops. so we just pick up all these different items and package them and propose to our clients.
So this is the role of DMC to be a mediator between local suppliers and the clients.
Jason Elkins (04:39.927)
Okay, so who are your clients? You mentioned the words, we do this for the clients. Who are your clients?
Tamuna Tabidze (04:47.424)
Actually, we are not limited in choosing the different.
specific segments or specific clients. We are open to host everybody who would like to discover Georgia because as a country of hospitality we are welcoming everyone and everybody so and it’s really our pleasure to share our speech, our story, lifestyle because it’s not just coming and going through the country, visiting some of the main and major sightseeing. It’s really going into
to the soul of the country, meeting with the local people, going to the families, having these wineries, visits, interaction with the local people, just to get to know what the real soul of Georgia. And our clients are the ones who come to experience everything. So we have clients worldwide from different countries, from USA, from Canada. We have some clients also from Latin America.
I dominantly work with different European countries like Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands. So, yeah, UK. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jason Elkins (05:59.545)
So pretty much anyone that wants to come to Georgia. It sounds like, right? Well, let me ask you specifically when we talk about destination management companies, oftentimes if I ask somebody at a DMC, who are your clients, they’re gonna say, our clients are primary businesses. We do business to business. We work with travel agents. We work with maybe what would be called an outbound tour operator.
you know, in, in the U S or something like that, maybe someone in the U S is advertising trips to the caucuses and they do a 14 day caucus trip. And then they work with a DMC. You know, that’s actually in Georgia that to put together everything and manage the trip and actually run the trip. so I’m curious. It sounds like what I hear you saying is that you do stuff like that, or you might work with a business or a tour operator or somebody that’s marketing trips in another country.
and you all do the things on the ground here. But it sounds like if a couple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin decide they want to go to Georgia, they can go online and they can connect with you directly. Someone on your team here in Georgia is working through all the details and will package that trip directly for an individual couple like that as well. Is that right?
Tamuna Tabidze (07:20.814)
Mm.
Actually, as I said, we are open to welcoming clients from different sources. We are a destination management company doing inbound business, meaning that we are only welcoming clients to Georgia in our country. Our core business is B2B, meaning that we work with business to business. We work with major tour operators all over the world with the travel agencies, but sometimes it may happen
usually when we have repeated clients that they traveled to the destination and they want to repeat the trip, they met the guides, they got inspired and sometimes they get back to us with a specific requirement and hey, can you help me making sure that we have these kind of experiences in Georgia because we are repeated customers, we’re returning back to you have some different kind of trips. Yes, if it happens actually and if a couple of
Mr. Walker will decide to get in touch with us so we can also help them assessing and building their preferred itinerary. However, we are only taking care of the inbound ground services meaning that it will be from arrival to departure. we take care of all the arrangements.
Jason Elkins (08:47.541)
Once once they get there, so you’re not dealing with, you know, the flights and stuff like that.
Tamuna Tabidze (08:50.754)
with the flights, not insurers, with all the yes. Because sometimes the clients are, mean the end clients, the final clients, they’re very much experienced, a little bit of adventurous, they can take care of their own arrangement. In this case, yes, but it’s very limited usually and yeah, core business and it’s bit to be so. And we prefer working with the two operators because,
This way the travel arrangements are always smooth. So what we commit, we comply and they have also all the requirements with the clients and they take care of each and every detail before coming to the destination. means that we guarantee that. So the service level is really guaranteed what our clients are expecting.
Jason Elkins (09:44.973)
Got it. Got it completely. I think we need to, maybe I should have started with this and it’s, I don’t know if it’s a sensitive thing or not, but I’ll tell you coming from the U S when I said I was going to Georgia, a lot of people thought I was going to Atlanta, Georgia. and a lot, a lot of them were like, Georgia, where is that? What is Georgia? They hadn’t heard of it, which to me is surprising. I heard about it a long time ago.
but I guess we need to kind of this, yeah. Like an introduction to, to Georgia, the somebody that’s listening to this, that’s like, wow, I’ve never heard of this. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know much about it without unloading a bunch of facts and details and stuff like that. What do you, what do you tell someone when you meet them at a trade show or something and they’re like, where’s Georgia?
Tamuna Tabidze (10:17.526)
Introduction. Yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (10:34.638)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so it’s a good question because the country is really very small and not everybody really knows it. So it’s on the crossroads of two civilizations, Europe and Asia. It’s situated in the Cocosus that’s a corridor between Europe and Asia. It’s a very small, tiny country, but very ancient because we have a statehood for over 3000 years and the country is really beautiful. It’s very small.
70,000 square meters but it has a lot. has mountains, great Caucasus mountains, it is the highest range in Europe so we have mountains more than 5,000 meters. Then we have a lot of different activities. Georgia is the homeland of wine. We’ve been making wine for 8,000 years so that’s a pretty long story and we are making still wine with all these traditional methods so this clay jars and
and all these experiences are very intimate. It is really a good inspiration to invite our clients to come and see what’s really the patrimony of the country. Then we have a lot of different, Georgia has a lot of different directions, lowlands, we have a black sea, so we have the semi-discouraged areas. So practically coming to Georgia, it would be a constant discovery of landscapes, cultural flavors,
because it used to be the meeting point of different civilizations. So you come across with a lot of nationalities, with a lot of confessions. And Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is also a good example. Because when you come here in a very small area, you can discover a lot of different, let’s say, flavors. So here we are, a small country in Cocosus between two…
Tamuna Tabidze (12:33.454)
between two civilizations, Europe and Asia.
Jason Elkins (12:38.073)
Let’s talk about the countries that actually border it. So maybe somebody can kind of visualize kind of where it is, where it is on a map. You mentioned the Black Sea and you mentioned kind of the crossroads between the Asian culture and European culture, but what are some of the other countries that border it?
Tamuna Tabidze (12:42.391)
you
Tamuna Tabidze (12:54.702)
So we’re bordering on the western part, as I said, we have Black Sea. So we’re bordering with Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia.
Jason Elkins (13:07.609)
Okay, so when you mentioned kind of now that we’ve zeroed in on the kind of the location, being bordered with Russia, I think we need to touch on that. Maybe we edit this out later, I don’t know, but I wanna ask you about kind of geopolitically things that are going on in the world and what people should know about that and how that might impact their.
their time in Georgia, because I love it. I I’ve been having a great time. I haven’t had any issues at all, but I know that before I came here, I had some people in my life. geez. You know, there’s a lot of things going on in that part of the world. So what would you like our listeners to, to know about that?
Tamuna Tabidze (13:47.31)
Actually, yes, before you come and discover the country, you could have different expectations and different concerns, especially because we are quite close with Russia. However, fortunately, we have these great Caucasus mountains, the big range that differentiates and also secures us.
And actually, so the situation is quite calm. Nothing is really happening in terms of escalations or, you know, the situation that is happening in some of our some of the areas like Ukraine or also Middle East. You know, now the world has become a little bit challenging all the other everywhere. But in terms of security, in terms of peace, in terms of everyday life, everything is quite, let’s
same, quite secure in Georgia. Yeah, definitely we have quite complicated diplomatic relationship with Russia because some of the territory is occupied by them. It’s and these conflicts started back in 19s, but it’s a frozen conflict, meaning that so nothing is really happening even in the areas where they have this domination. So just for the travelers,
who want to come to discover the country so they can be sure that the country is peaceful, country is secure and they can come and discover at their best pace.
Jason Elkins (15:21.717)
Almost never on this show do we talk about things like visas and passports and entry requirements. I mean, that’s that’s not generally that big of an issue that we want to chat about. But I do think one of the interesting things about Georgia and maybe I get this wrong, it’s fairly easy to come here. It’s not one of those places that you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get a visa. You can show up. You can stick around a long time as well. So I assume that makes it easy for people to want to come.
Tamuna Tabidze (15:40.748)
Yes, indeed.
Tamuna Tabidze (15:52.974)
Yes, it’s very easy to come to Georgia because we have visa free travel with more than 90 countries. USA is one of them.
For many countries, they don’t even need a passport. So ID card is also sufficient. So coming to Georgia, it’s yes coming to Georgia It’s really very easy because as I said, we are a country of hospitality and we try to facilitate the process from the entry to departure the stay For our let’s say dear guests and dear clients So when it comes to really formality, you can pick up your backpack buy ticket and come to Georgia because there is no
Jason Elkins (16:13.162)
I didn’t know that.
Tamuna Tabidze (16:37.812)
there is no long and complicated formality to come and discover our country. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (16:39.789)
Yeah, that’s what I did. I mean, it was simply as easy as I bought a ticket. I showed up and that, know, it’s okay. You’re welcome. And you can stay here for 300. My understanding is I can stay here for 365 days and then I can maybe go into Turkey for a day and come back and another. I don’t know. I don’t want to get too involved in that, but I do have a question because like I said, some places in this part of the world are not so easy. And.
Tamuna Tabidze (16:58.926)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (17:09.475)
when recently I’d heard, cause I was thinking I wanted to go to Azerbaijan. And then I was told, well, you can’t actually drive across the border into Azerbaijan. So you pretty much your only option is to fly. And I don’t know if many of your guests are trying to do, you know, these types of trips or whatever, but can you help me understand just your take on why you can’t drive into Azerbaijan? Cause there was something interesting.
I don’t know if you want to discuss her, but I’m curious. I’m going to ask.
Tamuna Tabidze (17:39.328)
Yeah, no, all the neighbouring countries are very interesting because, and we do have lot of combination trips with neighbouring countries, especially Armenia and Azerbaijan, because the Caucasus region is very interesting.
And actually, the countries are very small, actually, all the three countries, and they are very different because the Azerbaijan is, let’s say, in terms of religion, they are Muslim country. They have a lot of oriental influence. Armenia is a little bit of mix of different, let’s say, different influences, but it’s also a very ancient country. So when you come to discover
and many of the times clients are traveling in all the three countries so they come to see the
They come to see different, let’s say, attractions, different sights, different confessions, different nationalities. And they can enjoy in one trip all the different flavors of cocosus. When it comes to actually border formalities, we have land borders between Azerbaijan and Georgia, and Georgia and Armenia. So the crossing the border, it’s not very complicated. However,
could imagine that you need to do a passport control. If it is like land transfer, you need to get off the transport and you need to do the control and get on the other, let’s say, week. for the travelers who are having these experiences, it’s also good to know much in advance because many of the countries who do not have borders now, so for them it could be
Tamuna Tabidze (19:38.078)
This experience could be a little bit exotic, let’s say, but when people are, let’s say, heavier and when they are prepared, actually, it’s also kind of nice and exotic experience for them. However, there are clients who prefer to have…
to have flights between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. In terms of logistics, it’s faster and it’s more comfortable.
Jason Elkins (20:15.801)
So is it, what I hear you saying, is it possible to cross the land border between Georgia and Azerbaijan?
Tamuna Tabidze (20:24.59)
The land border between Georgia and Azerbaijan is open from one side so clients can come from Azerbaijan to Georgia. It’s open only from let’s say one direction. and yeah, we can and we are running tours when we are collaborating with partner DMCs in neighbor countries so clients can start a tour in Azerbaijan, cross the border to Georgia, then travel around the country and then continue to Armenia.
Jason Elkins (20:36.113)
okay.
Jason Elkins (20:45.081)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (20:54.777)
Okay, that makes a lot kind of a lot more sense logistically as like that seems interesting, but yeah, start in Azerbaijan and then move on to Georgia. And it sounds like a no big deal. All right. Very, cool. All right. So let’s it’s time. want to understand how you got into this type of work because most places in the world or just most people in the world don’t work in tourism like we do.
Tamuna Tabidze (21:03.98)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (21:22.903)
So it’s always kind of interesting to figure out how you got into it. So how far back do we need to go into your child or into your life to, to kind of understand why you ended up doing this type
Tamuna Tabidze (21:23.831)
Yes.
Tamuna Tabidze (21:34.304)
Yeah, actually it’s a good question and to be honest, so I don’t know how it came to me, my whole, let’s say my whole…
Since I’m adult and since I’m kind of realist person, I’ve been working in the hospitality and tourism industry and this is my passion and I cannot imagine my life without that. To be honest, when I was a very small child and I was born actually in Soviet Union, so my passport, my birth certificate is Russian.
Jason Elkins (22:08.611)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (22:16.656)
I come from this passion that actually traveling in different countries, it was very mysterious, was very real, nobody was traveling.
and my father who had the opportunity to travel in different countries in business trips. So sometimes he was coming back with maps of different countries. Like I remember my inspiration was actually one of the first inspirations. It was actually Switzerland and Geneva because he got back to the country and he brought this map and he was showing also the photos.
Jason Elkins (22:49.879)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (23:06.512)
and he said that, you know that some people like from France or from Italy, they are coming to spend their holidays or something. And this was the very first, let’s say, fact that I had this interaction that, you know, people are going to different countries to have to see, to discover.
I was a very small kid actually and this was one of the first inspirations and then with my let’s say brother and sister we started playing let’s say this we tried to set up kind of travel agency or something and we started playing with our neighbors and if we were traveling to different countries and we were just pulling out the suitcase of my father and putting all the stuff and you know it was a very fun experience but you know it did the inspiration.
Jason Elkins (23:50.145)
You
Tamuna Tabidze (23:56.192)
And then I was also pretty much interested in different languages because before AI, now with AI all this really very, you can speak any language but before you needed to really speak the different languages. So I started learning different languages like, yeah, so English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, all this like different stuff like Russian, definitely because it was still like ex-Soviet period in Georgia. And you know,
Jason Elkins (24:07.769)
Yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (24:26.106)
I got curious to get to know their culture, different countries’ this region. yeah, meeting with different people, so it enriched my knowledge, my…
I grew up so much personally that I decided to dedicate my life to doing this because for me it’s really making people happy. Because what is tourism? It’s not the medical research or supermarket where you need to go for sure because you need to feed yourself or you need to take medicine because tourism is a mental health and tourism is a relaxation.
tourism is really to enrich your soul and your emotional condition and if you don’t think and if you don’t really try to make our clients happy and people happy so then what’s tourism? So for me it’s really making people happy and then of course the country is very small nobody knows new it now it’s a more or less you know
known. So, and it was a pleasure to also present a country to other different people. And yes, it’s a pleasure for me to propose Georgia because it’s a very small country, but it has a lot. So I’m proud to be ambassador of the country.
Jason Elkins (25:52.781)
I suspect.
Yeah, I, and I suspect that if you’re here in Georgia, representing Georgia, you’ve got people coming in from other places and they don’t really know very much about it. You Georgia is, it’s not, you don’t see as many pictures of Georgia on Instagram as you might of Italy or France or whatever. So I guess where I’m going with this is if somebody goes on vacation to France, they probably have a pretty
of I don’t know if it’s a clear idea but they kind of have a set of expectations of what France is about they get to France yep it’s France and the people in France are like okay another tourist coming to France and and maybe is it’s not as not as many surprises I guess is what I’m saying where maybe someone comes to Georgia and they’re like my gosh I had no idea that this was here and look at this and isn’t this cool they started
You know, the first place they make wine and they get to learn all these new cool things that maybe they didn’t know about, which is probably a lot more exciting for the guides and the tour operators like yourself, right? I’m just guessing, but yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (27:05.516)
Yes, indeed. Because it’s really very admiring for us as well just to know how people are surprised when they come to Georgia. Because they don’t know the destination and they have, let’s say, what they really discovered. They have minimal expectation what they really discovered to our country. Because it’s a constant, let’s say, trip of surprises. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (27:28.909)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (27:34.009)
You know what? It’s really interesting.
Tamuna Tabidze (27:35.02)
This is what makes Georgia from different countries.
Jason Elkins (27:37.977)
Right, right. And one of the interesting things that has happened since I’ve been here is I’ve had a large number of people, you I’ll meet somebody and they just immediately like the first question out of their mouth is, how do you like my country? You know, what do you think of my country? And it’s really cool because that doesn’t happen in a lot of places. I’ve traveled a lot and very, you know, every once in a it’s like
Tamuna Tabidze (27:55.007)
Yeah
Jason Elkins (28:06.753)
Somebody might say, do you like it here? What do you think? But here it’s like, it seems very specific. How do you like my country? Very, very specific. And I think that’s a reflection of kind of the pride.
Tamuna Tabidze (28:16.014)
You
Tamuna Tabidze (28:19.766)
Because everybody expects that you would like our country. Yeah, because you know, no Georgian, you cannot meet any Georgian who is not in love in the country, who is not patriot and who is not sure that everybody should like it. Yes, that’s why they ask you because they expect that you would say that, yes, of course, I like it. Yes.
Jason Elkins (28:23.457)
Yeah, yeah, where maybe if it was a
Jason Elkins (28:43.147)
huh. And then they just smile ear to ear and it makes it just, it’s, there’s a, the sense of, sense of pride. That’s pretty cool. I do want to go back and dig around a little bit more in kind of that childhood and the Soviet and then the post-Soviet transition. Cause that’s a fascinating thing. And just to frame that I’ll, I’ll, know, earlier I mentioned that I’ve known about Georgia for a long time.
I remember the day that I learned about Georgia. I don’t remember exactly what day it was, but I remember the context of the day. I was sitting in a class in Sheridan, Wyoming, where I grew up. And it was a Russian history class. I think it was probably called Soviet history, actually. And it was a semester long course where we learned a lot about the Soviet Union. This was during the Soviet times. Back in the, for me, it would have been in the…
Well, late 80s, so right around that transition time. And my teacher was telling me, you know, we, talked about a lot of different things. And one of the things we spoke that he spoke with us about was the Caucus region. And he was telling us about Georgia and Azerbaijan and Armenia. And he said, you know, Georgia is very much like Wyoming. You know, they’ve got these big mountains and they’ve got these planes and agriculture and this and da da da da. And the way he described it, it was like, it’s like Wyoming.
you know, in the Soviet Union. was like, and I was like, wow, that was just fascinating to me. And I remember that day, I used to say, I’m going there someday. I’m just, for some reason I was drawn to the region and I’ve been carrying that around with me for a long time. I have no excuses for why it took me so long, but for me to come here was kind of big deal. And
What’s interesting is, is you and some of your colleagues and some of the people that I’ve met here in Georgia grew up during that same time. I’m a little older than you. and a lot of people grew up in that same time, but from a totally different perspective, they were on the other side of it. Maybe they were taking classes, learning about the U S I don’t know. So tell us about that. What I’m not going to ask you how old you are. don’t need, I’m not going to say how old were you when the, when Georgia, but you know, any of that stuff, but
Jason Elkins (31:02.745)
I would love to hear some of your insights about growing up. So when you’re talking like you said, you’re playing like you were travel agent. Was that a common thing for young kids? Cause that’s does not sound common to me, but like other kids your age, were they also inspired to want to go travel and explore because of, the Soviet union experience or what do you think? That was a long question.
Tamuna Tabidze (31:14.83)
You
Tamuna Tabidze (31:28.686)
So, actually yes, I was born in Soviet Union but unfortunately I didn’t live long so I don’t really know what they were teaching at school because when I started school, so it was independent Georgia and I was really proud.
Jason Elkins (31:42.616)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (31:45.842)
So, and I don’t really remember the period was really tough and challenging because the transition was quite tough and we had a lot of challenges like economical situation and all the transition between from one perspective to other and just building the country from the scratch. We have a very big support from USA and actually I still have this small, let’s say cards from USA or US or that they were sending this
first aid or some small presence or something. That was also one of the inspirations because you know we knew that there was a country on the other side of the world very far away that they knew that Georgia existed and they needed help and you know it’s also very human you know very human touch for me that’s why so even though we had a lot of challenges we had a lot of support from different
again from different European countries because I don’t want to, I can’t exactly remember and I don’t want to count it in every country but I especially remember for instance Germany, France, that they were you know sending a lot of yeah.
a lot of different, let’s say, and you know, it was a very touchy moment for us, children that we got to know the countries because they were also, when they were sending all the small presents, they were sending some their flags or maps or some photos or so we got to know these countries and yeah, we got inspired that there were all the other countries around the world, you know, that they knew about the country, they knew about Georgia.
and the children were sending all this stuff to us. And then actually, to be honest, I don’t think a lot of people really thought about traveling or it was a common to play like travel agency. But to be honest, so in 90s, we didn’t have any…
Tamuna Tabidze (33:50.698)
other things to do just our imagination and fantasy because you we didn’t have gadgets we did not sew so it was all the huge time on our disposal to think about about different plays and about different activities so but yeah for the Soviet perspectives it wasn’t really common to think about traveling so because you know it was not very common for them and then little by
little just with the hunger just to open ourselves to the world, to have this interaction. a lot of people got interested in having relationships with different countries worldwide. And you know, I think that you mentioned that not a lot of people are working in tourism. It’s true. But I think that the people who work in tourism in Georgia, they are
really patriots of the country and they are really very much inspired in the destination because the country
and tourism has quite a lot of challenges and if you don’t laugh and if you are not inspired with what you are doing it’s not really possible to work in hospitality because it’s a non-stop, it’s constant, you need to be really for the clients you know service all the time and because indeed so for us we don’t count the statistics how many clients we had and yes we counted for
the statistics, how many clients we had and so for the revenue or all the countries. But you know for each client this specific trip is the specific one travel movement. So we cannot really permit ourselves that they these expectations, that some client expectations may fail.
Jason Elkins (35:41.112)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (35:52.034)
because we were on weekend or we were celebrating or we just forgot something. So we don’t permit ourselves because for every client, the trip is a very special moment and it should be a very special moment for them.
Jason Elkins (36:08.213)
Yeah, well said. So many things came up as I listened to you. And it’s this is a unique experience for me to have this conversation with you, because I’ve been here for about six weeks now. And I’ve, know, and your team has helped me experience some of it. But I’ve experienced a lot of things on my own. So I’m trying to figure out how to ask some of the questions that have been rolling around in my head that I know are maybe some of them come from.
me being a little naive or culturally trying to figure things out. So we discussed Georgians being hospitable, wanting to share their country. And the way they do it isn’t always exactly the same way that maybe people do it in other cultures. So where I’m going with this is I tend to be kind of a little bit.
Maybe somebody would use the term loud, maybe even obnoxious. I don’t know, some stereotypes around maybe Americans. So I walk into a place and I tend to, hey, how’s it going? And I’m smiling, come out, Jawa. And I’m just like so friendly. And sometimes I get these looks back, like people are like, who are you? Why are you so outgoing?
Tamuna Tabidze (37:22.158)
I’m not sure about that.
Jason Elkins (37:34.381)
I’m trying to figure out how to ask you why some people here in Georgia don’t seem so happy, I guess. I might come back and edit this out, but I really just want to know the answer, especially, you know, maybe some of the convenience stores. I did figure out recently, I’ve been going to the same convenience store for about a week now, and she’s starting to warm up to me. She actually smiled at me.
Tamuna Tabidze (37:49.918)
Yes!
Jason Elkins (38:04.433)
yesterday. So, so help, help us kind of reconcile hospitable with not necessarily being overly friendly and, tell you get, what is that? Help me understand all this.
Tamuna Tabidze (38:18.87)
Actually, I don’t have an exact philosophy on why it is happening. To be honest, though we are very hospitable and each and every client is a special guest for us and we treat them as better as we can, yes, we are not very, let’s say,
People say that we are a very happy and smiling, let’s say, nation. Maybe it comes from the very deep historical perspectives because the Caucasus region and the country, let’s say, being very beautiful and the Caucasus region being a very strategical position in, say,
So it was always attractive to different perspectives. We always had a lot challenges throughout the existence of the country. A lot of people were coming here and leaving. Not everybody was coming with a good intention.
Jason Elkins (39:19.033)
That’s a good way to good way to put it. I appreciate that. Yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (39:22.726)
Yes, and you know, we’re hospital, but at the same time, we try to be, you know, not too much open, not too much friendly just to prevent ourselves from, let’s say, from the people and from the nationalities who do not have really very good intention to come to our country. And also, yes, the challenges that the country had starting from 90s,
until know the until present so it’s really it really had the influence to really you know shape you know the exterior or the interior you know of Georgians so this is how we are
Jason Elkins (40:17.091)
think I just heard you say centuries of distrust for outsiders because maybe the Mongols or whoever invaded showed up with smiles on their face in the beginning and then it was like, okay. So I guess centuries of distrust sometimes still show up in the culture. But what’s interesting is
Tamuna Tabidze (40:23.064)
Yeah
Jason Elkins (40:44.513)
Like I can look at them like, yeah, she doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t want to get to know me. And I’m saying like someone working in a store. I get that. Nobody, I don’t know why I would expect that they’d want to get to know me. and I’ve also had some amazing opportunities, which is like my hosts where I’ve been staying like Airbnb is that type of thing. And the last place I was at, showed up and the, you know, the host seemed kind of just like,
distant, didn’t speak English and obviously, Gmarjeva is like the only thing I can say in Georgian. And it just kind of felt like, okay, this is the typical Georgian. And then within a few days, I’m sitting in their backyard. And he’s teaching me how he’s makes cha-cha and his son’s there. And we’re drinking and his wife just keeps coming out of the house with a new plate of food for, you know,
two hours we’re there and she just continuously was bringing food out and they were so incredibly gracious. So that was a good example for me to say, okay, well, they’re not necessarily going to start out super, super friendly unless maybe they work in tourism. I’m sure, I’m sure the people on your team are the exception for sure. but I, I think that’s why that came up is not everybody works in tourism and you kind of have to have to really like it. You have to really like to smile and be around people in order.
Tamuna Tabidze (41:52.642)
Yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (42:05.314)
Yes, exactly.
Jason Elkins (42:08.821)
in order to do it. Let’s talk a little bit about your team. Because I came in the office, I’ve actually been in the office a couple of times now, and I love I walk in, they’re all just like, hey, smiling. And they’re just seem so friendly. So how big is the team? Do they all live in Tbilisi? You’ve got people spread all around. What does that look like?
Tamuna Tabidze (42:35.246)
So the team is around 30 people and actually nearly everybody lives in Tbilisi. Actually we have employees who come from different different cities, small cities or some villages as well but you know
But Tbilisi is a kind of big cosmopolitan city. Now everybody tends to come to Tbilisi and work here. though the population of the country is literally around 3 million and a half, less than 4 million, one and a half lives in Tbilisi. and if you are running some business that really needs a concentration, you need to really…
come and live in Tbilisi. So in this regard, so majority of the employees, even though they may be born in different regions of Georgia, they all live currently in Tbilisi and work here. We have hybrids, let’s say style, so they are not, it’s not necessary to come every day to the office and they can work remote. We give maximum flexibility to the employees because, know, if you want to make people
happy you need to be happy. So if you want to have inspiration, know, yes, because our clients majoring who are traveling and who are trusting Magic Roads Georgia, they’re looking for something very specific experiences because you can build up a tour program with AI and you can even take some of the exams from the published tours and you can take the rental car and travel around the country. just to go to the main site, see it’s not really necessary to have a DMC. You need a DMC
Jason Elkins (43:56.377)
Yeah
Tamuna Tabidze (44:23.786)
if you want to have really curated travel with a lot of thought, something really tailored for your preferences, your expectations, your expertise to have all the creative ideas, to have all these special surprises that we are trying to propose to our clients in the wild mountains, some of the tiny small villages, some pop-up surprises and activities. I’m not confessing all the
So all the secrets, let’s say through this podcast, because you need to come. Yes. Yes. And yeah, for that, you need to really be concentrated and you have to, you need to have the creation. So you need to be creative. need to have time and you need to have also capacity to think about all this, you know, all these different creative ideas. And we give maximum flexibility to our employees so that they can have this
Jason Elkins (45:01.283)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (45:23.888)
and did inspirations. yeah, so, and I would say that we have some departments and the classical structure of the company, the finance, the marketing team, production team, sales, I would call it business development, so not purely sales, because we don’t interact with final clients. So it’s mainly B2B, so it’s mainly business development.
Jason Elkins (45:27.075)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (45:53.882)
Then we have quality control and cross reservations definitely. We have some of our own guides and drivers as well.
Jason Elkins (46:02.489)
So a real team.
The reason I wanted to ask you that is because there’s all different sizes and types of businesses out there. you could have a DM, you could have some places a DMC that’s almost a one man show and he’s got some guides and some drivers that he contracts with. And what I was impressed with when I went and visited you and I asked you some of these same questions the first time we met about the team was like, it’s a full blown operation.
It’s not a little fly by night type of thing. I mean, it’s something seriously going on there just from what I saw in the office. And I do want to ask you this, do most of the people working for you…
This depends, because maybe you’ve got a finance person that maybe didn’t have any experience in tourism before. I don’t know. But I guess the question I wanted to ask you is, do most of the people on your team work their way up? Do they start in tourism early? Do they go to hospitality school and then get an internship and now they’re working for you? Or do you have people that, I’m sure you have mixed, but yeah, I’m just curious, what’s the path? Somebody that wants to work for you.
Interblasey, what’s their path? If somebody young is listening to this right now.
Tamuna Tabidze (47:31.758)
Yes
It’s a good question. And as you said, I cannot have just one specific answer because the people who work, for instance, in finances, yes, they come with different backgrounds or in marketing or in, let’s say, also taking care of the CRM like client database and all this. But the people who work in production and business development, definitely they have experience and background in tourism.
Jason Elkins (47:52.792)
Mm-hmm.
Tamuna Tabidze (48:02.772)
So we are specialized in tourism, so my major, so I graduated in Tourism Management and Marketing. yeah, so the team who is working in our team, have extensive experience, if not always being, let’s say,
graduated in tourism, but they conducted different, let’s say, courses. Some of them were dedicated in production, let’s say. They have experience of working as ex-guides because it’s very essential and it’s also very important to have this really in-depth knowledge of the destination. And yes, they started as a guide, they got inspired, and then after some time, they decided to do a little bit different thing in hospital.
and they now they continue to work in production.
and yeah actually it’s like this. Now we have also some of the quite young newcomers, university students, we have contracts with different major universities of Georgia, we have internship programs and then the ones who are really very good we are offering them also contracts so now we have
who are young, inspired, full of energy, motivation. They study at the university and they study here and they help us. And then actually we also have a of students whom we propose also contract because they seem to be quite, yeah, you know.
Jason Elkins (49:55.881)
I’m curious. So if you’ve got a, you know, maybe an intern that studied hospitality and tourism, they come in there.
Tamuna Tabidze (50:04.3)
Yes, yes, yes, what I mean. So currently we have four students, four interns who study hospitality at the universities and they are doing this internship with us. They study at the university and then…
They do internships, so they study. We teach them what we are doing and then give them some small tasks. But some of them are doing quite well. we already decided to take with a fixed contract two of them, because it’s also our mission to really help the young people to get inspired with the field. And it’s one thing just to…
Jason Elkins (50:31.673)
Cool, cool.
Tamuna Tabidze (50:47.884)
teach and to learn from the papers from the university and have these virtual ideas of the tours and everything. And on the other hand, yes, we have a very strong cooperation with the local universities and we did have quite successful projects of the internships. Not necessarily everybody is contracted because maybe they…
Jason Elkins (50:52.523)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (51:13.452)
The ones who really comply well and they share our spirit, what we have, yes, we proposed also a fixed contract. So it was a good opportunity for all of us, let’s say.
Jason Elkins (51:25.165)
Yeah. Do you encourage them to spend some time guiding? there, is that part of the process maybe as an intern is to actually get them guiding or did that’s, that challenging? Cause there’s already, you already have guides. mean.
Tamuna Tabidze (51:35.47)
Tamuna Tabidze (51:41.502)
Yes, we have them. Actually, we have guides. We have our guide certification course, Magic Academy, because, you know, it’s a little bit spontaneous in Georgia because it’s not a university.
level education if you want to become a guide. So there are special courses proposed from different private organizations who have experience and you can conduct the study, can pass through the exam and you will be certified guide. So this is a general procedure. We also have this Magic Academy because if you want to have new guides, let’s say, we want to train them not only with all these
Theoretical and all the know materials and stories and everything but also the quality the way how we show our clients to Transmits all the inspiration that we have so it’s very important for us to have our own trade guides So we have this guide preparation Course guides training Academy and yes our interns have the opportunity to attend this course but apart from that Yes, definitely and apart from that yes
Jason Elkins (52:55.734)
OK. Cool. Yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (53:00.66)
They are also kind of escorting tours with experience guides. So they are traveling around the country to get to know the country to assist them because initially, so we cannot assign them to guide the groups even though they…
finish this academy and have good results because you know initially you need to have some small experience also kind of assisting or escorting the groups and yes in the coming two weeks they will be doing another trip around Georgia being accompanied by experience guides so they will be in unique groups together our interns and our experience guides.
Jason Elkins (53:44.695)
Cool. I’m listening to you. I’m thinking, geez, if I lived in Georgia and I was a, I shouldn’t say younger person, I guess it doesn’t matter the age, but if I was living in Georgia wanting to work in this business, I I’d be, I’d be up at, yeah, I’d be up at your office. All right.
Tamuna Tabidze (54:00.864)
Maybe we can think about it. Yeah, so the applications will open in November. We will announce in November, we will announce the applications and the course will start end of November. So maybe you can think about it and apply.
Jason Elkins (54:15.981)
All right, I’ll stick around a little bit. I’ll stick around. Taimono, this has been a lot of fun. We’ve covered a lot of stuff, probably a little all over the place because that’s the way my mind works, but I just, a fascinating conversation. And I’m curious though, what did I forget to ask you or what do you wish that I had asked you so we can share it with our listeners before we wrap up?
Tamuna Tabidze (54:42.414)
I think we pretty much covered more or less, so we just had a really very pleasant conversation. So for the ones who really would be interested in getting in touch with us, just to give more insight that we have a special department for the corporate business and we running a lot of different projects.
for corporate clients, starting from incentive trips or this awarding trips or also conferences or meetings, what comes to my business, let’s say. We didn’t speak about that because we mainly talked about the clients who would come to inspire the country. But yes, we have a special brand and special department for the corporate travelers and we are running a lot of different trips.
Jason Elkins (55:35.193)
I would think…
I want to, just, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I, I was just like, as you were saying that I was like, my gosh. Yeah. To blazey or but to me, the whole country probably is really, really good for the mice stuff. It’s relatively with the exchange rates, the flights. mean, you can fly in directly for, I flew in directly from Paris. you’ve got nice hotels, nice venues and yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I’m happy you brought that up. Cause yeah.
Tamuna Tabidze (55:51.544)
Yes, yes.
Tamuna Tabidze (56:06.978)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (56:08.183)
Seems like a slam dunk. All right. I wasn’t trying to get you off your track there. was just, I just, mice. That’s brilliant. All right. Anything else?
Tamuna Tabidze (56:17.016)
Yes.
No, I think that yeah, yeah, the rest let’s say, G.B. continued.
Jason Elkins (56:26.039)
Well, to be continued. And, and I suspect that our listeners might see someone else from your team joining us here on the show at some point where we’re still kind of in talks on that. So trust, trust, might have more, more team members joining me on the show. So I’m going to thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Look forward to staying connected and collaborating on some more projects with you in the future. And just thanks for sharing your time with us.
Tamuna Tabidze (56:43.799)
Yes.
Tamuna Tabidze (56:55.118)
It was my pleasure. Thanks for this great opportunity. Happy to be here today, present at your podcast. Always listening attentively because we get to know the world and each other while with your podcast. It’s really very inspiring and encouraging.
Jason Elkins (57:02.209)
You
And thank you for smiling.
Jason Elkins (57:17.721)
Well, thank you. I love doing it and I wanted to acknowledge, thank you for smiling so much during this call. That’s one of the pleasures of getting to do this. So I’m gonna thank you so much. I’ll chat with you soon, okay? Bye-bye.
Tamuna Tabidze (57:31.406)
Thank you very much. Bye bye.
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