ABOUT US

Passionate experts in creating private tours and immersive experiences since 2009

Who We Are

We are Travel Curious, an international team of history buffs, travel junkies and tech geeks who believe in a better way to travel.

We believe that to Travel Curious means to unlock the potential of a destination- to have the courage to lose sight of the shore in order to discover new oceans. This means ditching the map, the rigid schedule, the ‘should-do’ list, and instead being led by whimsy as you are carried away by the local current. By becoming immersed in the local culture, and by accumulating an understanding of the place you are in, travel inevitably becomes a more fulfilling and experiential journey.

We are Travel Curious cover with people looking at map note

Mission

We aim to be the leading tour and experiences provider to premium and luxury hotels globally. To do this, we create unforgettable local, cultural tours and experiences, fulfil through our network of handpicked tour guides and provide this as a packaged service to hotels.

Founders

Amir Azulay

CEO

Born in Tel Aviv, raised in Johannesburg, lived in Paris, New York and now resides in London. Amir has travel in his DNA and has 10 yrs experience in travel industry. Amir has over 25 yrs experience in and around startups. He co-founded a startup in Israel that became the largest Value Added Service provider to mobile network operators (acquired by iTouch PLC). Amir relocated to London in 2007 where he was corporate finance director and CCO of Muzicall (acquired by Real Networks). Amir holds a BA and an MBA from Tel Aviv university in Finance and Management of Technology Companies. Amir was a careers officer in the Israeli air force (Captain Rank)

Alex Grant

CPO

Alex has 12 years of experience in the travel and technology space having worked for award-winning mobile app agencies in Rome and London and founding two companies in the tours and activities sector. Before that, Alex worked in Finance for RBS on their graduate management program and has an MBA from the European School of Economics and an undergraduate degree from Trinity College Dublin.

Nadav Zin

CTO

Nadav Zin has a BS and MSc in information systems from Ben-Gurion University. Between 1996 and 2003, he was a PhD candidate in computer science at University College London. Nadav has a thorough knowledge of understanding systems architecture and product. He specializes in the online travel space and was previously co-founder and CTO of Chic Retreats.

Team

Sean Galloway

COO

Sean has 10 years experience within Financial Services as a Specialist Trainer and Sales Manager, training and managing teams across the globe with HSBC bank. During his tenure he gained multiple accolades such for top sales in the continent for 3 years consecutively. Since then he moved on to the field of Recruitment, spending 5 years within Sales and Professional Services sector. Most recently he worked with ToursByLocals as Tour Experience Coordinator, leading Recruitment, Guide Community and Business Analyst to increase the company’s guide base while maintaining quality assurance.

Tiffany Handley

Director of Operations

Despite her paralysing fear of flying, Tiffany has spent her life globe-trotting, before landing at Travel Curious. Internally referred to as ‘the Queen of Sass’, she has a reputation for canceling social engagements in favour of a good read. While London’s clouds have yet to damper this native Southern-Californian, she never turns down an opportunity for a sun-soaked beach escape, paloma in hand.

Andy Heasman

Senior Developer

A self-proclaimed geek, Andy is the company’s MacGyver. There is no piece of tech too complicated to deter him from the challenges the team throws his way. Perhaps his motto “through struggle to the stars” keeps him going in the trials amongst our requests. While he may never became an astronaut and visited the stars, working in travel will at least get him to his dream destination – The Palace of Versailles, and its shiny Hall of Mirrors.

NED board and advisors

Mario Bodini

Investor & Chairman

Mario was at JacTravel group for 34 years. During that period the business developed from a local DMC to a global online hotel wholesaler, employing more than 550 people. As CEO he lead the expansion into new markets, most notably Asia. The business was sold twice to Private Equity in 2007 and 2014, and finally to Webjet in 2017. As Chairman of ETOA for the last 3 years he has been involved in numerous issues affecting inbound and intra European tourism. Mario is also involved in a number of businesses in the tourism and health food sectors.

Julian Houchin

Investor & NED

A senior hospitality and travel industry executive with 30 + years of commercial, operations and asset management experience. Julian has held senior executive roles with Trusthouse Forte Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels, Abercrombie & Kent, Radisson Blu, Wyndham and most recently was Group MD for CLC World Resorts & Hotels. Julian has also worked with 5 star independent hotels and resorts and engineered the successful affiliation of Sun Gardens Dubrovnik with Leading Hotels of the World. Julian is a passionate advocate and early investor in Travel Curious.

Harvinder Rattan

Investor & Observer

A well-earned reputation as an energetic business leader and trusted partner with more than 20 years’ experience in financial services, spanning Tier 1 Investment Banks leading global finance & risk teams. A qualified accountant, with a strong commercial acumen and a consistent ability to identify and deliver opportunities to help clients boost their business performance through effective procurement and supplier management. On the board of several successful startups including Non-Executive Director of a major UK Charity. A Freeman of the Guild of Entrepreneurs, promoting entrepreneurship in the City of London coaching and mentoring young entrepreneurs.

Angela Skelly

Senior Advisor

Angela Skelly spent over 17 years at JAC Travel Ltd, many of them as a company director overseeing the individual travel business. She has held various commercial, senior level roles and worked with the company from 2000 when it was privately owned, through two rounds of Private Equity (she was the commercial lead on the 2014 sale to Vitruvian Partners) and a sale to the trade in 2017 when she left the business to enjoy a year out. She is currently consulting as an advisor to CEOs and their boards helping travel businesses with their commercial and technical strategies.

Our Story

In 2009, founder Alex Grant was living and working in Rome as a tour guide. Alongside another forward-thinking guide, Alex started a tour company, which provided intimate, private tours tailored to customers’ unique requests. As his model of bespoke tours caught on, Alex realised a technology-enabled model of his idea could be applied well across myriad cities and destinations, and thus Travel Curious was born.

Fast-forward a decade and the fast-growing team is situated in Shoreditch, a location vibrantly melding the past with the new. Our offices are based off Curtain Road–a lively, storied, street in London’s illustrious history. We have a Banksy a stone’s throw from our window and the remains of James Burbage’s The Theatre across the street, where Shakespeare used to perform five centuries ago.

At Travel Curious, we integrate the tales of our surroundings’ history into our own story.

GET MORE DETAILS

We look forward to being your tours and activities partner

Are you a guide interested in working with Travel Curious? Click here to connect.

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