Tailor-Made Switzerland Tours: Our History

Although Umfulana is based in Germany, the company only began offering tours to Europe in 2003. The target market was initially German citizens interested in travelling abroad. The success of Umfulana’s customized tour concept led to the creation of an English-language website to enable travellers from other countries to request personal itineraries for holidays in Europe, South Africa or New Zealand.  Despite the popularity of such tourist destinations as the Matterhorn, Davos and Lake Lucerne, Switzerland was only added as a destination in 2008 in connection with the strong expansion of Umfulana’s products for its rapidly growing English customer base. Today Umfulana’s European offerings include tours of Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, as well as many cross-border tours combining various countries.

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 touring South Africa a year later with some friends from Germany, Tobias Garstka and Martin Bach came up with the idea of establishing a small travel agency for Germans interested in travelling to 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 last name (“Bach” is the German word for stream).
 

Based on a simple concept, brief descriptions of lodges and landscapes that were composed in a garage in South Africa were linked together to form tours. Itineraries were produced by Tobias in a spare room in Kürten, Germany, a small town near Cologne, with the help of his brother Dennis, who also created 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 the reservation of a rental car, 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 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 stunning 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 France, Italy and England.

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 “tailor-made tours” as its core business and not travel to a particular region.