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One hundred and eighty Colombian entrepreneurs from the tourism sector, both public and private, will meet in Bogota to participate at the first national Nature Tourism awareness tour, organized by PROCOLOMBIA, hand in hand with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism, and the Vice Ministry of Tourism.
During the session, the tourism specialist and the president of the Colombian Ecoparks Federation, Ecoturismo y Turismo de Aventura, Javier Gomez, disclosed the opportunities to bring international tourism with this product.
" The potential is large, starting from the entire fauna and flora offering, the ecosystems from the various regions in the country, among others. Through these workshops we will understand a little more of the synergy that exists between the human resources found around our natural resources, who want to place their efforts on nature tourism&rdquo , said the businessman.
He also exposed the mechanisms to implement in order to accomplish sustainable and competitive nature tourism at international level.
" Undoubtedly, the first step is the process we have been developing with PROCOLOMBIA direct contact sensitivity workshops with the entrepreneurs who represent potential regions for the development of this tourism segment second, the incubation of the sector to determine the status of the nature tourism offer in order to begin business plans for next year and, finally, international counseling to size and measure us worldwide&rdquo , said Gomez.
The workshops are intended to provide clarity on certain concepts, showing outstanding nature tourism cases and aligning the sector in terms of product promotion through the Zeiky export training methodology.
" The work done by PROCOLOMBIA for the promotion of Colombia as a destination has been of great help for us entrepreneurs. Nature tourism in the country is a topic that has not developed, and we think this encounter is excellent because it allows us to know what operators we can count on, who our strategic partners will be and where tourism in Colombia is directed&rdquo , said Andres Velez, Product Manager for Panamericana de Viajes.
Considering the broad offer around this tourism product in the country, the awareness seminars will also be given in the cities of Santa Marta (May 11th), Medellin (May 17th), Armenia (May 24th), Manizales (May 25th), Neiva (May 27th), Cartagena (May 31st), San Andres (June 3rd), San Gil (June 8th), Cali (June 10th) and Leticia (June 14th) to provide the private sector with information on Nature Tourism as a source of opportunities.
Colombia is the country with open doors with the highest biodiversity in the world per square kilometer, the first in number of birds and amphibians, second in plants, third in reptiles and fifth in mammals. All of these possibilities are included in the Nature Tourism proposal which contains products like national natural parks, bird and whale watching, rural tourism and ecotourism.
