– And you ended up directing the tourism policy of a country like Guatemala.
– Exactly. Well now I am the one who directs the Tourism portfolio for the government of Guatemala. When the president, Bernardo Arévalo, won the elections, I met him at a dinner. That day I told the president that for the first time in my life “I voted for someone and not against something” and I thanked him for that and put myself at his disposal for whatever he needed. I was still working as a journalist, but because I was so fed up with the issue of corruption that has been a scourge in our country and this government had awakened so much hope, I said: “Suddenly I am ready to take a step if I have to take it.” “. Two weeks later they wrote to me to speak with the President, and he already invited me to join when the government comes. I told him that I believed that, because of my international training, I could be useful in helping in tourism, because in the long run it is another way of communicating and you have to know how to communicate.
– Bernardo Arevalo is a center-left president.
– An ambassador from one of the Scandinavian countries told me that Arévalo in his country would be extreme right (laughs). The truth is that today the world is changing and it is no longer so easy to label politically, or by ideologies, unless they are extreme movements. This is a government that is obviously looking for a very solid private sector and looking for public-private partnerships. Different models of public and private participation in large investments, but also seeking social justice. Guatemala is a country with high rates of inequality and poverty. So we have to attack both fronts and promote tourism to try to generate foreign exchange. Tourism has the potential to be the engine of the country’s economic development, 20 years from now. And what is being sought in this period is to lay the foundations for this growth to be sustainable and transversal. And this is my management, that it is a tourism that generates authentic tourist products.
– Authenticity because it is a tourism closely related to the characteristics of Guatemala?
– Authenticity is what the type of traveler we are looking for is looking for. Look for authenticity in experiences and we believe that this is achieved if we approach the communities receiving tourism and engage in very sincere dialogues with them so that they themselves tell us how they want to be represented. That it is not an imposition that comes from a government. That’s not how things work anymore. What Guatemala offers as a destination is so rich on a cultural level, with 3,000 years of pre-Hispanic history, that if we do not value that in a different way we will be wasting a great opportunity.
– Central America has Costa Rica or Panama as tourist centers. How could Guatemala be different?
– Guatemala can complement itself perfectly well with other destinations in Central America. Guatemala offers beaches, it offers adventure experiences in nature, but it also has 3,000 years of history. So we have over 1,700 archaeological sites in the area and many that have not been discovered. This allows the traveler to connect directly with the greatness of the Mayan Empire, with enormous cities like Tikal. That experience, that connection with the past, which is very vibrant, is very intense in the jungle. That is adventure too and we also have the indigenous culture, so alive and so dynamic. About half of the Guatemalan population is indigenous and offers a lot in terms of cultural experiences, gastronomy and art. That cultural wealth that a type of audience seeks on the continent, and here in Europe. I am of the opinion that I prefer to have fewer visitors who spend more time in the country and many who spend a short time. Because this type of visitor has less impact on the environment and less cultural impact, and due to their interest in culture, it is tourism that leaves a greater economic impact. And it integrates more into our population.
– What tourism markets are you exploring?
– Now there are five markets in Europe that we are working on. Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Spain is very important to us because it is our gateway to Europe. We have a daily flight between Madrid and Guatemala and so we want to take advantage of that. That’s why we are here, in this exhibition that I come to open. It is one of the tools we have to create a different narrative about Guatemala.
– How long have you been in your role as Director of Tourism?
– I have been in office for 10 months and, although we have to wait a little to see more results, there has been a boom in tourism that grew by 14%. In August the number of visitors from abroad was 14%, having grown over last year. We are going up and our goal is to reach four million visitors by 2027, at the end of the administration. I think we are on the right path and we are betting a lot on technology, Big Data. We are accessing this cutting-edge technology to better understand our markets and better direct marketing efforts. Before, one worked with statistics based on surveys of travelers, but they did not give you a very complete picture of what inspires the traveler, what they are looking for. And now we can actually design and direct marketing campaigns in a very strategic way that is going to give us great results. Cutting-edge technology to create very authentic destinations and products, and also to drive infrastructure development.
– In addition to Europe, are you going to look for tourism from Latin America?
– Yes of course. We are interested in the large countries of Latin America: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru. In Peru there are great opportunities and in fact we were at a tourism fair in Argentina very recently. There was a lot of interest in Guatemala and the issue is to work more on connectivity. We are interested in having direct flights, if not to Argentina, perhaps to Lima, which is also a very important commercial center and thus being able to connect with the rest of South America. Brazil is also a huge market that is increasingly traveling. We are focused on communicating more about who we are in Guatemala, to create a narrative about today’s Guatemala. And that’s where we are from Spain in this Ibero-American fair, in Europe. Big Data has shown us, for example, that German tourists generally travel for an average of 17 nights, that is, their trips are long and they begin planning 180 days before starting them. They really like adventure and contact with cultures, so technology tells us that it is a market that we have to attack. For this reason, we participate in the large tourism fairs in Madrid, in Paris, in London and then there are smaller fairs in Italy, but they are all great vehicles that we have to launch our strategy. That Guatemala is participating as a prominent country in all these places is very important for us.
– Don’t you miss journalism now as a civil servant?
– I do journalism now with tourism. I believe that one never completely stops being a journalist and in my approach to this management I use part of journalism, part of communication. Tourism is another way of communicating. So I see everything and analyze it as a journalist, I reacted to everything as a journalist and then I have not stopped being a journalist.
