About (NEW) | Chigwell Tours & Visits

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About

Chigwell Tours and Visits is a Luxlife 2021 Best Bespoke Tour Essex Award Winning tour operator and BBB finalist based in Chigwell, Essex.

Chigwell Tours and Visits began with a vision to put Chigwell in Essex on the global map and our vision is to become a favoured tour operator of choice, providing unique tour experiences creating unique memories for our guests and customers.

Chigwell Tours and Visits now provides an exciting range of tours in London, Essex , Bristol, Buckinghamshires, and further afield. Its winter escape tours to Ghana targets those looking to experience the sun, cultural heritahge, music and food experience in Ghana

It launched the luxury experience tours in 2023 to meet the needs of thoselooking for luxury experiences. If you are planning on staying in England and want to create lasting memories, let us create the perfect city or country break for you.

Our tours are suitable for individuals, families corporates,and larger groups. We offer corporate incentives for international visitors to the UK. We are happy to customise tours to meet special requirements.

Our History
Moments of Recognition
Customer Care
COVID-19

Chigwell Tours and Visits began with a vision to put the village of Chigwell, Essex on the global tourist map. Charles Dickens, a frequent visitor, coined the phrase ‘Chigwell… the finest place in the world!’ and Sir Winston Churchill was the local MP for 29 years. A village at heart but within easy reach of the City of London, Chigwell had been strangely missing from the regular visitor circuits. Our founder Salome Ahenkora, felt that its rich, cultural and historical associations and attractive scenery, combined with the many leisure opportunities offered by the surrounding countryside, made this the ideal destination for a day out.

That was back in 2009. Salome was at that time Senior Consultant at Concept Consulting RMT, a management consultancy that is now the parent company of Chigwell Tours and Visits. She developed an outline plan for a walking tour of the village and surrounding area. This focussed on the village’s history and connections with Charles Dickens, Sir Winston Churchill, the legendary highwayman Dick Turpin and a host of more recent celebrities.

A year later, with her blueprint ready, Salome partnered with the University of East London. The concept attracted an extensive team including local historians, the late John Redfern and Peter Comber, Sue Marshall and Esther Adjei. After extensive research, four local tours were created for launch in June 2012 just before the London Olympics – and Chigwell Tours and Visits was born. Our range of tours now extends beyond London and Essex to different parts of England including Bristol and Somerset and Bath. Creating corporate packages for select groups of people has enabled us to refine and excel in what we do.

Over the years Chigwell Tours has also benefited from the work of Alun Hague, Sylvia King and Dan Roberts, our Blue Badge guide. Other tour guides we work with include Yasmin Rogers, Amanda Griskov, Lindsey Collier and Clive Simpson.

In 2015, Salome was awarded the Inspirational Woman Award, and dedicated the award to her team at Chigwell Tours. She has used her experience to mentor and support enterprising young women and graduates to succeed in business, life and to reach for their stars by achieving their goals –whatever the obstacles and challenges.

2021 also got off to a great start, with Chigwell Tours being awarded ‘Best Bespoke Tour Operator in Essex 2021’ by LUX Life magazine – well-known for featuring luxury brands! After a tough year, winning such an accolade has given us a real boost.

But our celebrations didn’t stop there as we had also made it into the finals of ‘BBBAwards’. Receiving a trophy for our hard work and an invitation to the upcoming awards ceremony.

We have taken care of customers’ needs with our practical Covid-19 Policy, giving all customers a 12-month extension or money-back guarantee. When the time is right in 2021, we’ll be able to welcome you back for the experience you’ve been looking forward to. For us, guaranteeing a fair deal is the natural thing to do.
We should like to thank customers who took advantage of our policy, and we look forward to welcoming you on our tours.

During lockdown, we were touched to hear of so many significant acts of kindness, heroism and support for healthcare professionals and for loved ones everywhere. The strength of community spirit seemed ever increasing! This was borne out by the generous donations received for our fundraising initiative ‘Losing Dad’. We started this to support the families of black people in the medical profession who had lost their lives through contracting Covid-19 in the course of their work.

We’re hoping 2021 will rekindle everyone’s desire to travel and see the world. Just getting back to normal will be great – doing ordinary things we previously took for granted! But you’ll find what we are offering customers this year is far from ordinary. Lockdown has proved a busy and creative time for Chigwell Tours and we’d like to share with you what we’ve been doing.

1. We re-thought our concept.
2. We grabbed opportunities, noticing the natural world around us more. Birdsong became louder and the air, fresher! Hainault Forest Country park, on our doorstep, came alive.
3. We developed five new outdoor tours in 300 acres of beautiful woodlands and forest, lakes, making the most of the undulating landscape and magical wonderland for children – taking in magnificent views of the London skyline.

You can now look forward to our bird lovers’ Twitcher Tours, our Sculpture Trail and our Arts Walking Tour with Lunch; our Forest Walk – with an opportunity for a round of golf, our Tranquillity Walk and Picnic – and a Bike-Ride Trail in the forest. The new tours will be rolled out this year – so more from us on these, soon.