By Michelle Rodrigues
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As the world continues to see greater numbers of travellers, locally owned and small travel products are often not able to keep up the pace with Internet advances. Today tourists often prefer to search and book online and this phenomenon is cutting out small operators who do not have the skills or the soft infrastructure (photographs and quality written content) to participate on the Web.
Locals participate in the harvest of the blue agave, the key ingredient required for the production of tequila
A World Heritage Site is a place recongised by the World Heritage Centre, administered by UNESCO, with a significant cultural and physical importance. Tequila, Mexico is one of these places. WHL Consulting is working in Tequila with the Consejo Regulador del Tequila in support of La Ruta del Tequila to build the capacity of small and locally owned tourism products in and around the World Heritage Site of Tequila, Mexico, original source of the popular alcoholic beverage.
The team at WHL Consulting has created a program called Project:Exposure, which provides targeted assistance in support of small businesses at these heritage sites to be more competitive. The Tequila project is sponsored by the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) Sustainable Tourism Cluster, a program of the Inter-American Development Bank. It is a pilot program, future worldwide replication of which could be of particular importance to World Heritage Sites.
Project:Exposure
Project:Exposure aims to promote the online presence of locally owned and operated hotels and tour operators, developing new market opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises while placing great importance on supporting local resources.
Project:Exposure aims to provide enterprises with the tools and knowledge to successfully market themselves online
Project:Exposure provides small and medium enterprises with the tools and knowledge to successfully market themselves to the independent traveller online and become part of the online booking world. Subsequent to developing a complete audit of existing tourism products, the project includes development of photographs, professionally written content, marketing material and a completely spherical 360-degree immersive tour of a property. Participants in the project are also given the opportunity to view firsthand the benefits and effects of the project through Market Access Training seminars conducted by WHL Consulting on the dynamics and significance of the Internet and e-commerce tourism.
The project in Tequila marks yet another program run by WHL Consulting in a World Heritage Site. WHL Consulting is part of the WHL Group, which had its beginnings as an IFC project (part of the World Bank Group) in Siem Reap, Cambodia. WHL Consulting has gone on to complete precursor Project:Exposure work in the Serengeti and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
The team at WHL Consulting are confident that the current four Project:Exposure pilot programs being run in World Heritage sites are going to be huge successes. In addition to Tequila, Mexico, Project:Exposure is at work in the Drakensburg and iSimangaliso in South Africa, and Ouro Preto, Brazil. WHL Consulting hopes to continue their support of building the capacity of small businesses in and around World Heritage Sites in the years to come.
Posted under General, Mexico, countries, responsible organisations, whl.travel news
This post was written by paul on February 16, 2010
It is very touching for me, as mexican, to read all the support given to this communities. Tequila is one of our most representative little towns with a lot to offer either for national or international travellers! Thank you WHL!
That sounds like a very interesting and relevant initiative, indeed! Just curious: do you also teach those people how to promote their services through social media and if so, what experiences have you made so far? As a journalist, I am constantly looking for case studies and experience reports for my blog http://floriankaefer.wordpress.com.
Hi Florian. The seminars focus on explaining the basics of e-commerce, how to distribute travel product and what travellers are looking for. The hope is that we can develop a long term relationship with the enterprises we assist through Project: Exposure. I’m sure that social media can be introduced at some stage but many small enterprises in destinations that we’ve worked in do not have a good enough understanding of the internet to begin engaging effectively in social media, and until the travel product is of good enough quality and actually bookable online any foray into social media would be largely irrelevant any way I think.
Our whl.travel network interaction with social media is growing, see http://twitter.com/whltravelBlog/whltravel
As tequila becomes one of the fasting growing top-shelf liquors, the opportunities in the agribusiness sector surrounding the source plant, the agave cactus, become more and more wide spread.
http://www.alternativelatininvestor.com/10/agribusiness/agave-&-tequila.html
Hi Stephen, you are right, first the basics, then the extras. Thanks for your feedback – and: I am (of course) already following you on twitter
I think it great what the WHL is doing in helping the World Heritage Site of Tequila, Mexico. Tequila is one of Mexico’s greatest exports. Manual labor is king down there. Anything to help them maximize their profits from this tough job is a positive thing.
WHL, has good blog posts especially on traveling issues, most attractive places have not been visited due to non famous in general public
WHL, no doubt working a need base work, it should be continued for welfare of peoples
Follow the work of WHL Consulting in Tequila through a series of blog articles published by Michelle Rodrigues on http://www.maketravelfair.co.uk and http://www.yourtravelchoice.org.
See a link to all of them at http://www.whlconsulting.com/33news.html
This should be continue for betterment of society, I appreciated your great work