Promoting Ecotourism in Colombia: Santiago Salazar and Ecoturismo Colombia.

Here’s another entry about people that go the extra online mile to promote Colombia as a Travel Destination, this time focusing on the bio diversity of Colombia. Some months ago while looking for Colombia pictures online I ran into www.ecoturismo-colombia.com  and got very curious about it, it seemed like a Colombia Travel Agency page but there were not tours to be sold, there was a lot of detailed information about Colombia Destinations (in Spanish) but it didn’t quite seem like an online Colombia Travel Guide, there was a online shop , but not really big enough to sustain a business model and it had tons and tons of pictures (specially about bird watching in Colombia) but wasn’t presented as a Colombia pictures database. Intrigued by all these, I decided to contact them.

Eco Turismo Colombia is a one man project; his name is Santiago Salazar, a Colombian entrepreneur and owner of the online company  www.imagine.com.co . Salazar started Eco Turismo Colombia two years ago with the main objective of spreading the word about Colombia’s eco diversity online and to create awareness about how global warming is affecting our fauna and flora. He defines it not as a “touristic project”, but as an independent environmental initiative that tries to reach as much people as possible within his means. Being an expert in online marketing he chose two relevant words to name his site (ecoturismo & Colombia) in order to attract visitors.

Santiago laments not to be a professional photographer, “That’s unfortunate” he says, “I’d love to be able to publish magazine-quality pictures…. my methodology is really simple and loads of fun too, what I basically do is to plan short trips, ride my motorbike and take photos of anything that catches my attention regarding nature and rural landscapes, then I publish them with a description of the area and some travel notes”

Ecoturismo Colombia’s very useful information (available in Spanish only for now)  is divided into geographical regions  and includes tips, distances between destinations,  a list  of hotels in each area and some very good pictures, their newsletter reaches around 5000 subscribers who are periodically informed about Eco news in Colombia.

Since he started the website, Ecoturismo Colombia has been steadily increasing its traffic which gives Santiago a pretty good idea of how the interest in Colombia is growing worldwide, “I’m sure that Colombia can turn into a Eco Tourism leading country , we have nothing to envy to any other country in the world, and there are so many unexplored places yet to be discovered around our country”.

You can find Ecoturismo here and  thanks so much Santiago for taking the time to answer my questions.

Abrazos

Marcela