We recently connected with Alba Delgado and have shared our conversation below.

Alba, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I first came up with the idea of having my own tours website, when I realized that the previous agency I was working for, was exploiting me, I was earning merely 20-30% of the price they were charging the clients for the service I was actually giving. So I thought: ” why not do it myself? Travelers will have a quality service, for a fair price, and I will earn what my service is worth. “. I knew everyone was giving me 5 star reviews and complimenting my guiding skills, so I quit my job at the agency and went solo. I created a website and then posted my tours on a very famous Tour Operator platform, and started receiving many bookings, this happened in 2019. I feel very lucky that that first year as self-employed went so well, and then the pandemic started, so it was tough, but I think it’s safe to say everything started to go back to normal at the end of 2021.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am actually a political scientist, but I have specialized in Historical Heritage Interpretation, which is a very important part of tour guiding. I have created my routes taking into consideration to add information about the historical changes, the social impact and heritage of the things we see in the tours. That is why I believe my tours are so liked, because I try to approach the things we see, to people’s social experiences, and compare historical events to political events that their countries are living or have lived.
People find it fascinating when they explore a city and understand the real meaning of the things they see, and the way they can also feel identified with those things.
I believe it is essential to learn about these topics when you travel, because this creates a good cultural and sustainable tourism for our city, and not just herds of people taking pictures and leaving in a bus after a few hours. Massive tourism is not good for the cultural development of the city, so I strive to transform that terrible mass tourism, into slow cultural tourism. Come and visit Seville with me, and you’ll see the city with other eyes!

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

The global pandemic was definitely the worst time for everyone, but specially for those of us who work in tourism. I’m not lying when I say I literally cried the first day the government said we were going to quarantine, and that no one was allowed to travel in or out of the country. I trully started crying because I suddenly had a storm of cancellations, and had to give the money back to travelers, so I had nothing. all the bookings for that month and the next 2, all gone. And of course I had a crisis when I realized I was not going to have any income for at least 3 months.
Everything I had done in 2019 with my website and tours, was gone.
Thankfully, the government started giving subsidies to people who worked in tourism and hospitality, so that’s how I survived.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

During the pandemic, we all had a lot of time to spare, right? Well, I took that time to study, and learn about social media. Created my instagram account, and started posting creative reels about Seville. I gathered thousands of views, and hundreds of followers thanks to that. I have to admit that I kind of abandoned it when I started to get more bookings again, and had little time to make videos. But I still post from time to time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.altaiturismo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/altaiturismo/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AltaiTurismoSevilla
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alba-delgado-7992bb81/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvTlaeG6_ZV6XdMsbQvoHgA