We recently connected with Chidi Nwachukwu and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chidi , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Our mission in 2017, when we founded this company, was to provide an authentic cultural experience to all participants. We wanted to expose Africa's beauty to people who may not otherwise have the opportunity to experience it the way they would like. We aim to give our participants an experience that will enable them to generate fantastic memories. As We enter year five this year, we remain proud of the fact that we have provided over 1000 customers with experiences in over 10 countries. We are also proud that our mission remains the same as we continue to provide our patrons with authentic and enjoyable experiences. It has been great to see our story and mission come to life through the eyes of the people we serve on each trip. And as we prepare to head home to Nigeria and Ghana this December for our 5th anniversary, we can't help but look forward to 5 more years of providing people with great memories.

Chidi , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Our beginnings were modest and generated from a sense of duty to what we care about. During a heart-to-heart in Costa Rica in 2017, we asked ourselves a simple question… “We are having such a great time here; why can’t we do this in Nigeria?” People genuinely enjoy traveling to different countries and experiencing other cultures. Yet, many of our peers aren’t exploring and enjoying Africa or Nigeria. After the trip, we kept the conversation going and thought of how we could get people to enjoy Nigeria the same way we have ourselves. We latched on to the stories and energy of travelers of all backgrounds. Then we homed in on serving those that had the desire to visit Nigeria but didn’t know where to start. We also related to the stories of the people who have been but never really got a chance to enjoy Nigeria how they wanted to. From there, DiscoverGidi was born with a mission to change the conversation around traveling to Africa for leisure. Since then, we have evolved and expanded what we do and how we serve customers. We are genuinely proud of what we have created from a products and services standpoint because we have never limited what we offer to a mere travel experience. We are careful to get to know each of our customers to meet their personal needs and quell their potential worries about traveling to an unfamiliar place. We spend endless hours making the travel experience as seamless as possible, from when someone signs up to when they leave us at the close of a trip.
It is no secret that the travel industry was one of the hardest hit during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic. During this time, we took additional precautions to ensure the safety of our guests. We streamlined processes in Ivory Coast and Ghana for the smooth entry and exit of 100% of our attendees – a true blessing. In addition to health and safety, we make sure our guests have the opportunity to connect with the places we visit on a personal level through our philanthropic efforts. On every trip, we partner with a local organization to donate health supplies, school supplies for children, soccer gear, and the list goes on. Since our inception, we have donated thousands of dollars worth of supplies and positively impacted the lives of youth in numerous countries. Lastly, we sincerely appreciate everyone who joins us for an experience, and we do our best to make that known. On each trip, we have a contingent of people that recently celebrated a birthday or have one coming up, so we make sure to bring them a hand-written note and gift to show our appreciation in person. Our efforts exemplify our passion for what we do as a company, and the small steps we’ve taken illustrate the labor of love that is DiscoverGidi.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

As mentioned above, the covid-19 pandemic dealt travel companies a terrible hand. It left us with over a year of lessened activity and a population of core customers weary of how the “new normal” would impact their travel. At the time, we had to ask ourselves how we could stay afloat as a company when we could barely operate normally, with no opportunities for new people to partake in our offerings. From there, we launched an endeavor to provide smaller groups of people with custom-curated trips for their special occasions (i.e., birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones). This would allow us to give smaller groups the opportunity to experience our trip-planning services and core understanding of modern travel needs for people of color in a customized format. This pivot landed us a chance to take a fantastic group to Cartagena, Colombia, for their Deltaversary and opened our eyes to a new lane of opportunities for building customized trips for people looking for a service that goes beyond a typical travel agency.

How did you build your audience on social media?

This is an interesting question because we genuinely feel we are still building our social media audience and presence daily. Our goal on social media is to show as many people as possible what an authentic African experience looks like in an enjoyable format. We’re grateful for each person who follows us and feel that is how we’ve grown our following to the current level. We show appreciation for those who come on our trips, attend our events, and share our content for their networks to see. We also highlight authenticity through the content we post, real people of color having a good time enjoying their experience. Those smiles and dance moves you see on our page are genuine, and that’s likely while people follow us to see more, they look forward to seeing people that look like them having a blast. Our followers are organic because these are real people sharing their experiences with us and in turn getting their friends and followers to head over to our page and follow the action. Our advice would be to make sure you can still have real & genuine interactions with people face to face in order to be able to build your brand online

Contact Info:

• Website: https://discovergidi.com/
• Instagram: @discovergidi
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/discovergidi
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJNBjCwUwq1QMRWB26o9ODQ/featured

Image Credits
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