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.

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 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.

Tags:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 5:50 am and is filed under the following categories: