TravelMole interview: Ronen Paldi Ya'lla Tours

TravelMole interview: Ronen Paldi, owner, Ya’lla Tours USA Ronen Paldi’s Portland, Oregon-based company sells only seven countries, mostly in the Middle East. “We do sell the toughest neighborhoods in the world,“ he told TravelMole. His Ya’lla Tours only covers Egypt, Morocco, Greece, Turkey, Jordan and Israel. If those weren’t hard enough, Mr Paldi not long ago added Cuba. But Mr Paldi says repeat business, a high quality product and a sales force composed entirely of travel agents have combined to make his company a success since he started it in 1993. “We’re smaller and proud of it. We don’t compete on price or have big numbers but we do have quality. And we have a strong and loyal customer base that keeps coming back,” he said. Accommodations, for example, are often four-star beach front resorts. The company offers various choices of stop-over points. In addition, the company has fully staffed offices in each of the countries it serves. His staff carefully checks out every destination . “When people ask how far the bathroom is to a museum, we know,” he said Ever since he started the company, Mr Paldi’s intent has been to sell his tours entirely through agents. He has about 9,000 of them spread across the US. Ya’lla Tours does not sell air separately, but concentrates on land-air packages. Agent commissions are a minimum of 12%, which can go higher. Mr Paldi does not promote the latest in technology or mass numbers, he said, but instead concentrates on service and his niche market. The later, he said, is often misidentified as being dangerous. “Safety and security is the biggest misconception” about the Middle East, he said. “The media has sensationalized it and does not give a true reflection of what is going on.” What does Ya’lla mean? It’s “let’s go” in Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish. “It’s the most popular slang word in the Middle East,” according to Mr Paldi.