Hospitality Awards 2020

Page 6 www.lux-review.com LUX 2020 Global Hospitality Awards What Ethiopia can also be, if you’re open to it, is a country that shifts your perspectives. Its striking landscapes and ancient history, its warm hospitality and array of influences, flavours and cultures surprise and delight many visitors. That’s what the team at Tadele Travel aim to do with every journey they design. This specialist Ethiopian travel company was founded on a deep love. Girma Moges Tadele grew up in Lalibela in the Ethiopian Highlands. Perched half-way up a mountain, the rock-hewn churches of his small hometown are one of this country’s most striking religious wonders. Having worked as a trekking guide in the magnificent mountains around Lalibela for a number of years, life led him to the UK. As more and more friends started asking him about their options for travelling to his homeland, he decided to launch Tadele Travel in 2016, to create journeys for people who wanted to experience Ethiopia, not just tick it off a list. He wanted visitors to experience the warm, open Ethiopian hospitality he had grown up with. As Girma explains: “At Tadele Travel we don’t want to take you to see Ethiopia, we want to share what it is about Ethiopia that we love. Whether that’s the food, the music, our beliefs or the day-to-day rituals that make Ethiopian culture what it is. We want to connect people to Ethiopia and its people in a way that is meaningful.” As a guide, Girma had worked with remote local communities to develop routes and infrastructure that would enable them to benefit from tourism. This concept of tourism as something that treads lightly and brings benefits to all, is at the heart of Tadele Travel. “For us, the foundation of designing journeys that achieve this is respect. All the experiences For many people, Ethiopia is unexpected. You may know that it is the only African country never to be colonised, that it is referred to as the ‘Cradle of Humankind’, or that it is an ancient crossroads of African, European and the Middle Eastern cultures; of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These are all true. Oct20708 Tadele Travel Experience Extraordinary Ethiopia we offer respect the local people, wildlife and natural environment of Ethiopia. Then it needs to create dignified opportunities for people. That is very important to us.” To this end, all Tadele’s guides are Ethiopian. The company is fortunate to count some of the country’s most experienced guides in its team. They are all generous in sharing insights into their own culture alongside the historic and natural facts. As Girma explains, “Our guides are not just there to make sure you catch your plane and have the facts and understand what’s on the menu. Part of their role is to connect people more deeply to what they are seeing and experiencing. They are hosting our travellers.” The company specialises in designing tours for couples, families or small groups of friends. There are no set itineraries, and every journey is created following a thorough conversation about why you want to visit Ethiopia. It could be the history, art and architecture to be found in places like Lalibela, Gonder, Aksum and the walled city of Harer, or the intrigue of remote island monasteries on Lake Tana or mountain-top churches in Tigray that you want most to see. You may be drawn by the dramatic scenery and diverse ecosystems of the Bale or the Simien Mountains, or the adventure and otherworldliness of the salted and sulphurous desert landscapes of the Danakil Depression. Perhaps stories of the Queen of Sheba, King Lalibela, Emperor Haile Selassie, or striking photographs of Orthodox Christian festivals ignited your imagination years ago. Or maybe it’s the distinctive sounds of Ethiopian music and the diverse flavours of local food and drink that you most want to experience. Tadele Travel will weave your itinerary around whatever it is that has drawn you to Ethiopia and what you love to do. If you enjoy cycling and your partner is a keen birder, separate and shared activities can be arranged with the most suitable guides. If you’re a runner and would like to do a training run with a local runner, that’s not a problem. If you have the time and are happy to drive rather than fly between destinations, this can be organised. Your accommodation is carefully selected to enhance your experience. As a relative newcomer to international tourism, Ethiopia has developed higher-end accommodation options in recent years. The true luxury, however, is in the hospitality, which in Ethiopia is a way of life rather than an industry. Here, hospitality to strangers is a pillar of both Old Testament Christianity and Islam that underpin the every- day cultures of much of Ethiopia. Alongside the more conventional cultural tours, Tadele Travel pioneered commercial road cycling tours in Ethiopia in 2016, and they lead small pilgrimage tours, many of which culminate in one of the religious festivals in Lalibela. For more information visit www.tadeletravel.com. “We want everyone to love and experience Ethiopia as we do, and so what we offer is an authentic experience of an extraordinary country and its people.” – Girma Moges Tadele, Director of Tadele Travel Photo credit: Richard Hancock LRPS Photo credit: Richard Hancock LRPS Photo credit: Hannah Mornement