Meet Paulo Ortiz | Founder English & Tours

We had the good fortune of connecting with Paulo Ortiz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Paulo, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
It was back in 2009 while working as an English teacher in a local university in my hometown, Monclova, Mexico. I have always wanted to take my students to tours in the US and the first on e was to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Most of my students did not have a vistor visa to enter to the US so I wrote letters to the US Consulate in Monterrey in order to facilitate them this important document. Most of the visas were approved by the immigration officers to make possible the field trip in Houston which was a tremendous success and impact not only for the students but also for the university and the community, because everybody knew about the trip as well as the university. After several visits to Houston and San Antonio in the state of Texas, the students suggested me to go farther, to New York, and we went in 2011, I took 90 students to the Big Apple in a Road Trip of about 4500 miles where we visited Memphis, Washington DC, Atlanta and Dallas. The very next year, in 2012 I took another group of 90 students to New Orleans, Miami, Orlando and Houston, always trying to adapt the tours to academic purposes by visiting universities or museums. After these tours to the East Coast many people wanted to join us but they were not students in the university I was working in, but I decided to offer our service to the general public.
In those years I also started sending students to study abroad, some of them as Au Pairs and others to study English in Canada, UK and Ireland. This is why I took the name of English & Tours for the agency.
Right now we have offices in Monclova and Piedras Negras, both in the northern state of Coahuila in Mexico and we are planning to expand to more cities. Currently we offer tours to the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia, and also language courses and if people want to study a bachelor or master’s degree we can do that as well.

What should our readers know about your business?
Being around for 15 years running the agency is not easy at all, but what makes us different is that we not only travel to Mexico but also to North America and lately to the whole world, but the main difference is that we offer language courses to study abroad in our catalogue, that makes us completely different than the rest.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Since I spend a short time in my hometown, I would take them to my favorite city in the entire planet, New York, for a 5 day tour, where we would be visiting the Yankee Stadium for a Yankees game as well as all the places that makes New York an incredible city, such as Times Square, 5th Avenue, Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
To my wife Violeta who has always been besides me supporting my decisions and of course my former students who encouraged me to go beyond the limits, not only geographically but emotionally, and last but not least to my team, without them everything would have been more difficult.

Website: https://www.englishandtours.com

Instagram: @englishandtours

Linkedin: Paulo Cesar Ortiz Gonzalez

Twitter: @pcortiz66

Facebook: Paulo César Ortiz

Image Credits
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