Magari Tours stirs agents’ appetites with custom-made recipe cards

An Italian specialist is whipping up excitement for its trips by producing branded recipe cards for travel agents to get a true taste of the destination.

Tony Flanagan, director of sales and product at Magari Tours, which launched in January 2024, said he racked his brains to come up with an innovative way to connect with agents and raise brand awareness.

The operator runs small escorted tours to lesser-known parts of Italy, including Tuscany, Lombardy, Sicily, Umbria and Puglia with stays in private-run and family‑owned hotels.

Flanagan said: “From my perspective, Magari is all about the touch, taste and feel of Italy.

“I kept walking into agents’ shops and seeing branded mugs and pens from business development managers who had gone in before me.

“I was thinking, what can I do that is different and something that agents could take home rather than keep in the branch, and I came up with the idea of contacting local artisans for recipes synonymous with their regions of Italy.”

Flanagan tasked his contacts at hotels and restaurants in Italy with sharing simple recipes, which have been reproduced on A5 cards with Magari Tours’ branding and pictures of the ingredients.

So far, 15 different cards have been designed and hundreds printed. Recipes include acqua cotta toscana (Tuscan ‘cooked water’ soup) and pici alle briciole di pane tostate (pici pasta with toasted breadcrumbs), both supplied by the Grand Hotel Impero in Tuscany, and Quarenghi Cake, courtesy of the Miramonti Resort Hotel & Spa in Lombardy.

The cards had created a stir with Magari’s 200-plus agent partners and their clients, according to Flanagan.

He said: “I didn’t appreciate how much agents would like them, and it’s resonated well with their clients.”

Flanagan said the operator may consider producing a ring binder to keep the recipe cards in if the marketing idea keeps taking off.

“I am trying to get more cards created. We have even thought about competitions and getting people to send in pictures of themselves with the dishes they’ve made,” added Flanagan, who said the operator hopes to work with more like-minded, independent agents in 2026.