The Orinoquia region of Colombia is experiencing an incredible renaissance. After years of civil war, peace has come to their region and tourism is growing. Getting to know this region has been a great pleasure. One of my favorite stops on the road from Yopal to Villavicencio is Asadero Las Vegas. This place has great grilled meats popular in Los Llanos but it is the great customer service and enthusiasm of the staff that impressed me the most. Our servers were friendly and welcoming and happy to share a...

25 February, 2018 /

We came to their village and they welcomed us with warm smiles and simple gifts; Flowers, tea, tasty snacks. The head of the community spoke words of friendship and we walked through the village, the Annapurna range in the distance. We stopped by a well and spoke to the young people, collecting water for the evening meal. We were sharing our evening meal with a small group of families. After dinner, they brought out their iPhone and wireless speakers and played an eclectic mix of traditional Nepalese songs...

06 October, 2017 /

From a marketing perspective, the answer to “where do I start?” is always with your target market. For many small tourism businesses that can be a hard thing to do – after all – your product is right there in front of you – and it is beautiful. Over summer I had the great pleasure of visiting tourism product in the area of San Juan de Arama in the Meta region of Colombia. As the ink dries on the peace treaty that ends the war in Colombia, the people...

01 October, 2016 /

There is an excitement about the power of social entrepreneurship. Unleashing the power of entrepreneurial thinking on social problems provides “out of the box” solutions  after years of "standard" responses these challenges. However, some of the most vocal advocates for social entrepreneurship only extoll the virtues of scalable solutions and game-changing approaches. There is more to social enterprise than a few large organizations and I want to take a moment to celebrate social entrepreneurs that are working in their own small corners of the world, making real and positive change...

06 July, 2016 /

The rise in "Local" is making an impact. One of the three big trends shapingmarketing today - So Mo Lo ( Social, Mobile and Local), "local" tends to be an afterthought in conversations that focus on the rise of mobile and the impact of social networking and marketing. But "local" is a big deal to tourism marketing and is changing the way the industry does business. The focus on local has a couple of great benefits for tourism: Local product and services build a "sense of place". "Local" tends...

28 May, 2015 /