We want to share with you stories of people who began to forge what
it could have been the first Association of Tourism Guides in Chile.
How did the Association start?, who were the creators?, why did they create it?
We have several questions to solve. Little by little we will reveal more than 33 years of life of our organization. We will start with stories that perhaps do not belong to us completely, but that are an important part of how the association between Tourism Guides was created.
En esta ocasión queremos compartir con ustedes parte de la vida de Sergio Conforti.
Pero, ¿Quién fue Sergio Conforti y por qué queremos contarles parte de su historia? No se preocupen, pronto lo entenderán.
It was the year 1939, a couple lived in Trieste, Italy. He is a lawyer and she is a secretary. The Nazi persecution began and they realized that it was impossible to continue living in Europe. They looked for where to start a new life and they decided on Brazil. The day of departure was approaching, sad but hopeful. They had to go to the embassy to collect the papers to be able to migrate to that country, but it was closed. They quickly had to continue with the search for a new destination to protect them, some friends had relatives in Chile and in this way they got an invitation with which they could obtain a visa to migrate to these lands.
Years passed, they made their lives in our country. They had 2 children. One of them was Sergio Conforti, who became a policeman and firefighter.
In 1962, the year of the Football World Cup in Chile, Sergio was a traffic policeman. He was always assigned to the door of the Hotel Carrera, which operated until 2005 on the corner of Teatinos and Agustinas. Sergio had 2 flags on his left arm: those of Italy and England. Tourists approached him to ask for information.
If they needed an excursion, he would take them to the office of the Latour travel agency, located in the same hotel. Thus he became known in the world of tourism.
In 1963, Sergio resigned from the police force and became a Tourist Guide in Latour. That same year he founded the first Association of Tourism Guides of Santiago, together with Alberto Cuevas, Fernando Alcaíno, and Enrique Puppo. In 1967 Bernhard Naschelski joined together with Vicente Mangiola.
This first association was never registered with the Ministry of the Economy, despite the hard work carried out by the founders. Tourism companies saw it as a union and the government responded to requests saying that tourism workers were under the wing of ACHET (Chilean Association of Tourism Companies) and that all aid would be channeled through this channel. Currently our reality has not changed much.
Sergio, when trying to continue with this associative project, had problems even with the same agencies for which he worked.
In addition to speaking 5 languages (Spanish, English, French, Hebrew and Italian), he was a charismatic man, with an attractive and very sociable personality (part of the characteristics that every guide should have). He was a recognized guide who worked to form the first Association of Tourism Guides of Chile.
This fight was interrupted with the coup d’état on September 11, 1973. Tourism was paralyzed for 8 months, many colleagues began to see other work alternatives, as is currently happening with the pandemic. Sergio Conforti began to dedicate himself to the sale of medical articles. Over time, tourism began to pick up and many colleagues returned to guiding.
We want to thank Sergio for the work done to enhance our work, his effort to bring the guides together under an eaves and work to achieve dignity and benefits for all. That remains to this day the north of the Professional Association of Tourism Guides of the Metropolitan Region.
Thanks Sergio for this great contribution, thanks to his family and his friend Bernhard Naschelski for sharing this story with us.
We will soon continue telling more anecdotes about the life and work of the Tourist Guides.
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