Customized Tours of Australia: Our History

The second major destination added to Umfulana’s programme after South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have become of one the company’s core business locations. Umfulana has maintained a local office in Christchurch, New Zealand, since 2003. From there customized tours are now offered to various parts of Australia, in particular the coast of Victoria in the southeast, the Queensland coastline in northeast Australia, and area around Ayers Rock in the interior.
 

In 1997 Martin and Gabriele Bach moved from Germany to South Africa with their four children. Both of the Bachs had been serving as ministers in a village near Cologne when Gabi was offered a position as minister of a Lutheran church in a town called Hermannsburg in KwaZulu-Natal.
 

While travelling in South Africa a year later, Tobias Garstka and Martin Bach came up with the idea of establishing a small travel agency for Germans interested in touring South Africa. Tobias had gone through confirmation at the church where Martin was minister in Germany and had provided valuable assistance with youth work.
 

Six months later a company named Umfulana – individuelles Reisen CC (Umfulana Personalised Tours) was founded. The name Umfulana is a diminutive of the Zulu word for river and thus means “little river” or “stream”, a literal translation of Martin Bach’s surname (“Bach” is the German word for stream).
 

Based on a simple concept, brief descriptions of lodges and landscapes that were produced in a garage in South Africa were joined together to form tours. Itineraries were created by Tobias in a spare room in Kürten, Germany, a small town near Cologne, with the help of his brother Dennis, who also designed the company’s first website.
 

Umfulana’s first customers were friends of the owners. The client base slowly expanded as the young company’s work processes and marketing methods improved. In the beginning every booking, even a rental car reservation, was celebrated as a huge success.
 

By 2000 Umfulana had grown to the point where additional help was needed. Two secretaries were hired, one who put together itineraries in Germany and one who carried out the bookings in South Africa. At the same time the German office was moved from the spare room in Kürten to a rented building. In South Africa a second garage was acquired.
 

In view of Umfulana’s annual growth in turnover of 100% (with the exception of the crisis year, 2003, when only 70% growth was achieved), new destinations were soon added.
 

In 2002 Martin Bach and Brinka Hellack, who had previously worked for the consolidator that booked Umfulana’s flights, went on an expedition to New Zealand. It was a stroke of luck that a German student named Susanne Bonnemann had just completed her degree in geography with a thesis on New Zealand and wanted to emigrate. Susanne has managed the Umfulana office in Christchurch since 2003.
 

Australia was added to the programme in 2003 after an expedition lasting several months was undertaken by Umfulana staff members.
 

In that same year, 2003, Martin Bach returned to Germany. Despite the incredible beauty of the South African landscapes, Martin had become homesick for “Old Europe” with its historical cities, its gothic cathedrals, its cultural heritage and even its forests. The next obvious step was to add such European destinations to the programme as Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain.

The core business of Umfulana, which is now a public limited company with offices on three continents, has shifted. No longer focusing exclusively on South Africa, the company now produces original itineraries for travellers to a wide variety of destinations. Today Umfulana regards “personalised tours” as its core business and not travel to a particular region.