Rolling hills, medieval walls, classic arts, wine, food made with fresh and local ingredients, and the camaraderie of traveling and learning together.
A small group of Texas Public Radio listeners recently returned from Italy, where we met new friends from Missouri and Rhode Island as part of Collette's “Spotlight on Tuscany” tour.
Using the modest town of Montecatini Terme as home base, the group traveled to Florence, Pisa, Lucca and San Gimignano with a mix of guided excursions and free time to explore and embrace the local culture along the way.
Our tour manager, Giorgio Flaccavento, provided insight into the region with enthusiasm and good humor. Flaccavento has been managing tours for over a decade. He said he sees travel as a way to “enrich your soul” and continually “grow up.”
On the evening before our last day, I asked Flaccavento (although it hardly seems appropriate to call him by last name since everyone on tour referred to him by first name) if he’d be willing to sit with me for a few questions about his life and work. Below is our conversation—with good wishes for your own happy traveling in the future, perhaps with the next TPR Travel tour.
Nathan Cone: When you were growing up, what did you want to do, and what was your early life like?
Giorgio Flaccavento: My life was always a sliding door… (like) the movie "Sliding Doors" because I never took the right decision. ...I had never taken the right decision in my life! But life took me to take (a) decision.
I really am a young tour manager in the sense that I'm 52, but I have been working only for 12 years as a tour manager. That means that this was not my first job. My first job was in a publishing house that produced books about art and tourism in Sicily. I worked in the marketing department, and we used to do tourism promotion because our books, folders, they were used in all the international tourism exhibitions. So, let's say I fell in love (with) tourism, (and the) artistry of Italy in that moment. But even in that case… I was kind of confused about my future.
Then there was a job opportunity, I simply caught it, and then I remained in the publishing house. I had been working for 14 years, and then the publishing house (was) in trouble because of the new digital economy. The publisher I worked for was an old man, not physically but professionally. He was already 67 when there was the need to make the digital revolution… to survive in the market, and he wasn't ready to face this.
So, at the end he went out of business. And he basically fired all the people, including me, that were working for him. In that moment, I was in front of a cross about looking for a similar job—a marketing department for a publishing house, or winery, or other things (in) Sicily, the region I come from.
Storytelling, in a way.
Yes, yes, yes. Trying to do the tour manager (job), that is something that I loved to do as an amateur, arranging little trips in my region for the local people, and then let's say the disgrace of being fired created a new opportunity! And with more than a little bit of courage, I decided to jump into the new adventure.
So… you talked about having done a few trips for friends and colleagues in Sicily where you're from. What was it like going into a larger adventure of becoming a tour manager and arranging and doing things like that?
I was partially operating as a tour manager when I used to arrange even the little things in Sicily for the locals because at the end the kind of job was the same. Looking for a hotel, tourist services, restaurants, tour designing—that is the most fundamental thing.
So I loved to do (it), but of course (it) was made in a small scale, a regional one. I thought when I took my license… proposing myself to the local travel agency, they would have been enthusiastic to open the door because of my past in the publishing house and in tourism promotion, (and) because my knowledge of the region — specifically, Sicily, in this case, was particularly developed compared to, let's say, an ordinary tour manager.
Instead, it was difficult because it still was the time in which you worked because you were recommended in a good sense and not in a negative sense by someone that was already inside, so the first year was very difficult. I started to cover emergency (vacancies), and then I started to work regularly as soon as I could prove my value.
What do you like about this job? What do you like about sharing the culture of the regions, the different areas of Italy?
If I have to be honest, I didn't mind the previous job either, the marketing department, because it put me in touch with so many people, so many situations, so many different things. That is the job I owe my knowledge to, no?
But this is the job that I really love, because this kind of job gives me... the opportunity to share what I know. That is the thing that I love the most. But also to interact with different people and in a certain way also give the opportunity (for) me to learn new things about the other people, to test the different reaction of the people when I show, for example, the same things, and I notice that someone is particularly excited, someone less, and so on.
But anyway, I try. But in this case, you can give me your feedback because you have been traveling with me for one week. I try to be natural, spontaneous. I don't like too much being like a teacher. This is not my role. My role is to make people happy, and to make people happy, I have to be happy with you. Otherwise, I fail. I don't reach my goal.
I will say that your delivery and the way you've interacted when you are extemporaneously speaking, it feels very conversational, very natural, and just like you're talking to us rather than giving a lecture of some sort.
Because that's not my role. I'm not even a local guide, but in a certain way, I also am a local guide, not here, not in this context, but in the city I come from, Palermo.
I'm pretty specialized in food adventures and food tours, and I'm pretty recognized for this because it's also 10 years that I've been doing (it), and I like to associate the food culture with the culture of the place. So, these things are always connected because at the end, the world has been always about food... searching and surviving.
So basically, when I give a tour and I'm in the role of the local guide, food expert, and to introduce the city and combining the cultural elements with the food elements, explaining the connections, the tradition, because this is a place that gives you the opportunity to do this because here everything is ancient, even the food.
When I do this, I'm never too academic, no? Because people are on vacation! People want to learn, but want to discover how people live, want to see the real life of the places. Otherwise, you (can) buy an audio guide, and you don't need me. No, I'm here to interact, to understand who is in front of me, to give the right delivery to any different person.
You mentioned learning something from the people who are with you as well, the reactions to different elements of a tour, but also — I'm sure that you get all sorts of questions about things, and I'm wondering what some of the most interesting questions you may have gotten over the years would be.
The people always surprise (me) because sometimes the questions are very different from what is expected. Sometimes they are naive because people really sometimes do not know anything about the destination because sometimes, they don't make the effort of reading just a couple of things about that.
Sometimes instead the questions are very… unexpected because they are deep questions. They ask me things like that (make me) say, "Wow, how could you know this being a foreigner?"
So, no special question comes to my mind right now. But what I can tell you is that yes, I received many different questions that are sometimes really unexpected.
I was going to ask—when we were in Pisa, (our local guide) Anna had an interaction with another tour guide, and they were having a joke. Right? She said, "Oh, don't look at me!" Or something like that. And I'm wondering how many tour guides know each other? Do you see people on a regular basis?
Ah, but sure, it's the same work environment. So it depends on how you work. For example, I do 30% of my tours in this part of Italy, and 70% between Rome and Sicily, Central, South Italy. So I have more chances to meet people in my area rather than here. But as soon as you make a tour two, three, four times, you start to meet always the same people, more or less, because we always are in the same place.
For those who may be thinking about doing this trip, or another trip to Italy... what are your suggestions about ways to prepare for coming to the country?
Well, we need to be humble, and we need to understand that Italy is a small piece of land... but is a super-rich place in terms of history and cultural heritage.
So, when we come to Italy, we really need to think about it. And in this case, Collette has 20 itineraries, no? Twenty itineraries just on Italy. So, what (does that) mean? It means that the offerings in Italy are so big that before taking a decision or just thinking, “Of course I can't miss Rome on the first time!” That's correct. I understand. I would go to New York as the first place if I decided to go to the United States.
But anyway, the offer is very big and various, so you really need to understand what you're looking for. So my suggestion is, don't go just to the first place (you can think of). Take a look to the itinerary… and try to understand what is better for you.
Because in Italy, you can really do cultural tourism, food tourism, environment tourism. Because we got high mountains, we have water, the Mediterranean Sea. We have food. We talked about the food a lot on the trip about the fact how different is the food even within Italy itself. We have really so many opportunities... that really, it's up to you to have an idea before taking a decision and understanding which one of the — in this case 20 — itineraries that Collette proposes in Italy (that) might work better for you.
And lastly, why should somebody travel, and specifically travel to a place that is different from where they live?
For me, traveling is fundamental. It's the reason I do this job. Because I feel happy and satisfied when I travel. For me, being from Palermo, even coming to Rome or to Tuscany for me is already a reason of joy. But even going to another city of Sicily different than Palermo, where I live, is a moment of joy.
Traveling is always a way to enrich your soul and to make you a better person because (it) gives you the opportunity to compare your lifestyle with the one of other people, your life condition with the one of other people. That's why I think the tour manager, in this sense, has an important responsibility in delivering this to the people.
Trying to make understand people, okay, the highlights, the monuments, the nature, the food, they are all great if we understand how they influence the life of the people that are living in the place, and why we have them here and not in another place. Because okay, nature is nature... it is a gift, but buildings, monuments, traditions, food, they are not.
They are what we do to a place, and how we grow up there.
Exactly, exactly. So basically, we travel because we want to grow up. That's what I think. And there's not an age limit to stop growing up.
That's a great way to end. Thank you so much. You've been a wonderful host this week, Giorgio. Thank you.
It was a great pleasure. Grazie. Grazie veramente.
