Columbus World Travel was the creation of Peter Mainardi. In 1963 Columbus Travel made history with the 1st direct flight from western Canada to Italy. In the early days Columbus provided charter service from Vancouver to Venice, Rome & Milan.
Vancouver-based Columbus World Travel can take you around the globe, providing travel services to worldwide destinations, but the business and its owners could not be more grounded. In 1963, Peter Mainardi started the business to help Vancouver’s Italian community visit their families back home. “He was the first person to charter an aircraft in Western Canada that flew directly to Italy,” says Peter’s daughter Angela Mainardi, who runs the company today.
ColumbusWorldTravel is located at the corner of Grant and Commercial Drive, in the heart of Vancouver’s Italian neighbourhood, but they are not limited to booking Italian getaways. “This location does not just cater to the Italian community,” says Angela. “In fact, Commercial Drive has become a melting pot of cultures, and we cater to customers from all over.”
The first quarter of the year is the busiest, as people book their summer getaways, but customers still come in year-round with various requests. “Some people want to use their travel points but they don’t want to do it themselves,” notes Angela. “Sometimes they don’t have enough points for just one ticket, and they need to buy a revenue ticket. They’ll willingly pay the service fee so we can do the points ticket and revenue ticket at the same time so everybody is on the same flight.”
Most of the time customers need advice on the best deals, and some have questions on the technicalities of their flights. Columbus World Travel has the experience and knowledge to respond to all of their customers’ travel enquiries and needs.
o So many people book online, but there is no better security then being able to phone a live person to help when something goes wrong, especially when you are half a world away. We were at a conference in Europe and were due to fly back to Canada when the air traffic controllers went on rotating strikes. With one phone call Angela and her team were able to re-book us and get us out of Dodge before they were full on strikes. Columbus World Travel is a name you can trust.
