Diplomatist Magazine Diplomatist September 2019 | Page 23

SPECIAL REPORT
old adolescents (“quinceañeras”) an emerging sub-niche
(while the celebrations of the 15 years are tradition and the
parents usually save for the chance). In this context, video
channels have been growing as a strategy to reach parents and
adolescents, being also a means through which clients can
relate their travel experiences. The Argentine firm FunTime
is an example of this. Other niches that require tailored
promotions are school trips, uncle and nephew trips, luxury
travelers among Millennials, etc. (Think with Google, 2016;
Axon Marketing & Communications, 2018; Latam Travel
Agency, 2018).
Recent years have seen the proliferation of websites
and blogs written by women reporting their experience as
autonomous travelers, which also manifests the impact of
female empowerment on tourism. More frequently women
travelling alone aim to arrange their own itinerary. They
usually pay a lot of attention to reviews on travel websites
such as TripAdvisor and Hostelz, and to details in reservation
platforms such as Airbnb and Couchsurfing (WTMLA, 2017).
On the other hand, experiences and new destinations gain
space, while there is a growth in the search for destinations
not usually traveled by tourists and that allow knowing the
authenticity of the place and its people. Different examples
are located in Latin America and the Caribbean, including
Guatemala and its IMPULSA program, created in 2015 to
conserve and diversify its rich natural and cultural heritage,
while helping to reach its potential in the industry of the
tourism (Latam Travel Agency, 2018; Trekk Soft, 2019).
Within a framework of sustainability, a successful initiative
emerged from this program has been La Choza Chula (in El
Paredón, on the Pacific coast of Guatemala), a non-profit
organization that organizes turtle and mangrove tours in
the area, as well as cooking classes, home-based, cultural
immersion and volunteer programs, having also developed
the construction of a library, a mobile library, a computer lab
and a secondary school (Trekk Soft, 2019). In other words, the
field of tourism currently offers a perspective of collaboration
between the ecosystem, seeking collective growth.
Final notes
Tourism, as is known, is consolidated as one of the most
relevant economic activities of today and has a growth
forecast. Thus, while tourism grows driven by the equally
growing wealth in emerging economies such as China and
India, coupled with the accessibility of air travel, emerging
and developing countries appear as a source and destination
of tourists.
In that context, while the travel industry continues to
open roads to new dialogues and confluences between
cultures, encouraging connectivity, at the same time it makes
other impacts felt, such as environmental, also appealing
from its place to rethink the place of travellers, in the
direction of sustainable tourism, which not only connects
and allows to know more and better but also to take care and
project the future in its different dimensions. In this sense,
tourism becomes much more than a source of material gains
for Latin America and the Caribbean but also a projection
platform of its rich wealth of thought and life experience,
which impacts on the personal experience of the tourists
that visit the region. n
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 9 • September 2019, Noida • 23