Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ryan Watts. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ryan, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

I believe the education system is quite broken, the high school system is heavily skewed towards pushing kids towards going to college, even if it isn’t the right move for them. I’m someone who probably didn’t need to go to college but did anyway because it seemed like the right thing to do. But in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best thing for me, and consequently, I struggled badly through college, I’m not proud to admit it but I dropped out of my first degree and very nearly dropped out of my second degree. I don’t blame the school system, because ultimately it’s up to me to take charge of my own life, but the problem I do have with the education system is that it doesn’t help you understand what your passions are and then help you find a career that aligns with those passions, they’re mostly just focused on pushing you to get the highest grades possible. If it were up to me, the thing that I would change about the education system today is to shift the focus away from funneling kids into college and instead give the kids of today the tools needed to discover all of the different types of careers available to them and then show them the pathway toward those careers.

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?

G’day, my name is Ryan Watts. I’m an Australian-born immigrant and I moved to New York City with my wife in 2023 and I’m the owner of Tasty Tours NYC, a walking food tour company. How did an Aussie end up moving to America and fall into this type of business? Well, let me tell you a story.

I originally grew up in Melbourne, Australia, I lived there for most of my childhood and teenage years but over the past decade I’ve found myself moving around a lot, having lived in New Zealand, Australia and the USA (twice), I’ve moved countries 5 times in 10 years and it’s safe to say I’m singlehandedly keeping the relocation industry alive. Moving countries has had its perks, but it also means that every time I’ve moved, I’ve also had to find a new job, which has meant that I’ve had nearly 8 jobs in the past decade and I’ve had three different career changes, if you looked up ‘millennial job-hopper’ in the dictionary you’d likely see my face.

My professional background and my education are in marketing and I spent the better part of 13 years in various marketing positions across finance, aviation, education, and not-for-profit. Most of the positions I held were financially rewarding, offered opportunities for learning and development, and I got to work with great people. Was I very fortunate to have these positions? Yes, absolutely. Was I feeling fulfilled? No, not really. Although they were great jobs, in my heart of hearts I couldn’t say I was feeling fulfilled but the roles didn’t align with my passions, and as I have gotten older I found it increasingly difficult to keep showing up for a job I wasn’t passionate about.

So, after nearly 13 years working behind a desk, I had an opportunity to step away from marketing and look at finding or creating a job that aligned with my passions. After some soul-searching, I decided I wanted a job that offered me four things:
1) Food – My next role needed to be centered around food, this is my biggest passion
2) Flexibility – I wanted to have flexibility with my role
3) Socializing – Ability to meet new people and have interesting conversations
4) Outdoors – Somewhere I can work outdoors and not be chained to a desk

I struggled for a while trying to figure out what kind of job would tick all of those boxes, and for a while there I honestly didn’t know if it even existed. But after some time and a lot of research, I discovered the world of ‘food tourism’ and the role of a ‘food tour guide’. Now, for those of you who don’t know what a food tour is, it’s an experience where a licensed tour guide takes you to local food spots and you get to sample different types of foods that are popular with the locals. As well as eating, it’s also an opportunity to learn about the history of the food, the neighborhood, and the culture that makes a city unique.

So after many painstaking weeks of creating a business plan, designing food tours, and building relationships with restaurants around the city, I was able to finally launch Tasty Tours NYC. We’ve just hit our 9-months in business and it has been one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs I’ve done in my entire career. I joke with my friends and family that I really have no business being in this business because I’ve never worked in tourism, I had never led tours before and I’m not a trained culinary expert, but here I am, 9-months later, and some 200 food tours later I’m somehow the owner of one of the fastest growing food tour brands in New York City.

One of the things I’m most proud of is that we now offer four different food tours across Greenwich Village, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and Chinatown & Little Italy. When building these tours I focussed on how I can create an authentic New York City experience for my guests, and I found that partnering with local and family-owned businesses was the best way to do that. I think for us the thing that separates us from other tour providers is that our tours go off the beaten path and focus on trying to showcase the best local food on offer in each neighborhood, and we try our best to avoid the touristy spots. Being able to work with and shine a light on the amazing mom-and-pop restaurants across the city has been really rewarding and I’ve been able to build strong partnerships (and friendships) with all of these restaurants over the past year.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Building a reputation has been relatively simple for our business, we’ve just been focussing on one thing, and that is to provide a a consistently exceptional customer experience. Customers want a great experience, and if you can give them that value, they will have no issue referring you to their friends and family.

Additionally, we’ve also been focussing on encouraging our customers to share their experiences online in the form of an online review. Particularly in the world of tourism, you live and die by the reviews because it’s the first thing that guests look at when deciding who to choose from, so if you have positive reviews, that provides social proof that you have a great offering and it means new customers will be more inclined to choose your brand over your competitors.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Diversification of client acquisition channels has been critical for our business. Relying on one particular stream to attract clients is not a safe way to run a business nor is it a sustainable way of growing a business. We’ve been very particular with getting our business listed on as many different channels as we possibly can, so now we’re able to generate new bookings and new clients from all over the place including Tripadvisor, our website, travel agents, hotels, gifting websites, and Groupon.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tastytoursnyc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tasty_tours_nyc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tastytoursnyc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tasty-tours-nyc
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tasty-tours-nyc-new-york