An Ethiopian tour guide with regal connections and a former Team GB Olympic marathon runner have teamed up to launch Britain's first Ethiopian specialist tour operator.

Girma Moges Tadele, whose family have a direct line to the 11th-century Zagwe Dynasty, and Richard Nerurkar, who finished fifth in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, officially launch Brighton-based Tadele Travel today. The company offers tailor-made and specialist group travel to the East African country which recently made it into Lonely Planet's 'Top 10 Places to Visit in 2017' list.

Girma and Richard have extensive personal experience of and connections to Ethiopia, allowing them to use their relationships with some of the country's best guides to develop unique itineraries designed according to their client's travel party, the time they have available and their interests.   

Former Ethiopian tour guide, Girma set up his first travel company as a local tour operator in Lalibela in the north of Ethiopia in 2006.

Soon after, he joined TESFA (Tourism in Ethiopia for Sustainable Future Alternatives) as a Technical Advisor and worked closely with Mark Chapman, a British community development specialist, to develop a range of community trekking tours in the highlands around Lalibela.

The programme developed rapidly as tourists came from all over the globe to hike in the Ethiopian highlands and stay in the country's lodges. Over the coming years, the network of walks was expanded to provide employment for more guides and local community hosts.

Girma met British tourist and international development consultant Philippa Haden in 2009 when she signed up for a community development project. They married two years later and moved to Philippa's home county of Sussex. After studying for a two-year foundation degree in travel and tourism management and a short stint at Kirker Holidays in London, Girma set up Tadele Travel with Richard.

Wolverhampton-born Richard had a distinguished career as a long-distance runner, representing Team GB at multiple World and European championships and finishing fifth in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

His knowledge and passion for running took him to Ethiopia where he spent 10 years in event management at the Great Ethiopian Run, an international 10km race founded by Richard's close friend and marathon legend Haile Gebrselassie. The experience gave him a wealth of contacts in Ethiopian government agencies including its sport and tourism sectors.

Girma says: "We know Ethiopia – our people, our culture and our language – like no other UK travel company. This is reflected in the travel suggestions we make and the details of our planning. I'm a native speaker and Richard is fluent in Amharic, and we both have unique personal experience of and connections to Ethiopia.

“We are motivated to share our knowledge of Ethiopia with people keen to experience not only the remarkable landscapes, wildlife and history of Ethiopia, but also the culture, warmth and hospitality of Ethiopians themselves."

Richard says: "We don't have any set itineraries. Our tours are not 'cookie-cut' - they are certainly not put together by a travel company on the ground and sold onto our clients via us.

“We work directly with our own tour guides in Ethiopia, all of whom we know personally. We can therefore guarantee the most authentic and unsurpassed experience for our clients. Each bespoke trip offers plenty of opportunities to experience every-day life and local traditions in Ethiopia.

“One of our tourists will be breaking the Easter fast at the family of her guide; another will be spending a day doing water-colour painting at a local artists' home. In short, local knowledge counts, as well as understanding how local people will best respond to the interests and needs of the tourist."

~ ENDS ~

For more on Tadele Travel, contact James Ellis (07956 499 043) or Lyndsey Thomas (07568 488 474) at All About the Story.

Notes to Editors

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The journey of an Ethiopian tour guide & how a British tourist has turned a dream into reality

Tadele Travel, Britain's first Ethiopia Specialist travel company, is the realisation of a dream of a former Ethiopian tour guide who grew up in a poor region of Ethiopia and now lives and works in one of Britain's more prosperous cities on England's south coast.

Girma Moges Tadele was born in the small town of Ayna, about 50 miles to the northwest of Lalibela, one of Ethiopia's iconic tourism destinations. The second of six children, his family is descended in a direct line from the four great kings of the Zagwe Dynasty of the 11th and 12th centuries. He is proud of his ancestry, and Lalibela, the seat of the Zagwe Dynasty, is close to his heart.

As a boy, Girma was the star student at his school. Even before he became a teenager, he spoke outstanding English and he can still remember memorising English words from pages torn out from the family's English-Amharic dictionary while herding sheep and goats in his afternoons after school.

One day, aged 11, while showing off his knowledge of plant and tree names in English in front of friends, Girma was spotted by a group of inquisitive foreign tourists. So impressed were they with his vocabulary that they kissed him on the cheek and give him a pen and a stick of candy, causing Girma to run home to share his joy. His father, however, took a different view, admonishing his eldest son for having begged from foreigners. But his grandfather intervened with the prophetic words: “Allow him to mix with foreigners. One day he will make his way in life with them.”

Three years later Girma's mother died. He was still grieving for his mother while out playing near his home when a British couple Frank and Frances Abraham spotted him, closely watching an army of ants collect flowers in the soil by his feet. They went over to befriend him. The upshot of that chance meeting was that Frances became what Girma now affectionately refers to as “my English mother.” Frances sponsored Girma through the last years of high school, which Girma completed in Addis Ababa, and then continued to support him through a college degree while Girma completed a BA in Management Information Systems at Unity College in the Ethiopian capital.

After graduating from college in the summer of 2006, Girma set his mind on returning to his home town of Lalibela and opening a tourism business. His first task was to pass further exams to qualify as a National Guide - he finished 2nd in his class of 50 – and soon later he bought a vehicle and set up his first travel company as a local tour operator in Lalibela.

Girma quickly realised, however, that his ambitions went far beyond being just another glorified taxi driver. Within a few months he had formed a partnership with Mark Chapman, a British community development specialist, and together they set about establishing a community trekking initiative in the highlands around Lalibela which in the years following became known as TESFA (Tourism in Ethiopia for Sustainable Future Alternatives). Over the next three years the project mushroomed. As more and more foreign tourists came to hike in the highlands and stay at the lodges, Mark and Girma expanded the network of walks, providing employment for more guides and drivers and local community hosts.

In February 2009 Philippa Haden, an international development consultant, came to Addis Ababa on her first visit to Ethiopia to visit friends. They suggested that she might be interested to see a community development project and she signed up for one of TESFA's tours - Girma was her guide for her tour. The pair fell in love and two years later got married. After living in Addis Ababa for a short while, they decided to move to the UK and came to London. But for Girma London felt too far away from nature, so within less than a year they had moved to Philippa's home county of Sussex and found a place to rent in Hove, less than half a mile from the seafront.

After doing some freelance work in IT support and content integration, Girma then enrolled at City College in Brighton on a two-year foundation degree in Travel & Tourism Management which included a five-month placement at Kirker Holidays in central London. As he came to the end of his studies, Girma's plans for setting up his own UK-based travel company to take tourists to Ethiopia started to take shape. He made contact with a British friend and former Olympic distance runner Richard Nerurkar, who had also recently moved back to the UK from Ethiopia and was, like Girma, living in Hove. Tadele Travel was born.