Turismo Chile Comes To Town

Turismo Chile’s North American ‘Chile Week’ road show kicked off in Vancouver on Friday night with a destination presentation and supplier networking reception at the Granville Room lounge.

Travel agents and media learned about the latest tourism news and developments in Chile and met with top tourism suppliers from the destination, including Azimut 360, Cruce Andino, Cruceros Skorpios, DAP, Hoteles Cumbres, Turismo Milodón and the region of Magallanes.

Juan Lopez, marketing manager, North America, Turismo Chile gave an overview of Chile’s main tourist zones: North & Atacama Desert, Santiago, Valparaiso & Central Valleys, the Lakes and Volcanoes, Patagonia and the Antarctic, and the Oceanic Islands, which include Robinson Crusoe and the famed Easter Island.

Lopez said the many reasons to visit Chile include its geographic diversity, its rich history and world renowned wine routes and festivals.

Lopez said the airport at the Capital of Santiago has several daily regional flights to connect travellers with different parts of the country, and that the Mont Verde archeological site in Southern Chile is a must see for tourists.

Naureen Kazi, account director, Turismo Chile North America told PAXnewsWest that Canada is an emerging market for Chile, and that the purpose of the visit to Vancouver was an outreach mission to familiarize the travel trade with the product available in destination, as well as selling tips and tools.

“This month, we launched the Chile specialist desk reference guide that we will produce annually, and includes product with tips to sell, and a listing of all the tour operators in North America that sell Chile,” and the regions they are in, which is really handy for the industry,” Kazi said.

Kazi also said Turismo Chile will soon be launching a specialist course for travel agents that will be housed on chile-specialist.com.

“It’s a five module course that will be launching at the end of October, for members of the industry that would like to be registered as a Chile specialist, and down the line we will roll out an incentive program- but we have to first take steps to educate the industry on how to sell more Chile,” Kazi said.

The Turismo Chile North American road show continues this week in Toronto, Chicago and New York.

For more information, go to chile.travel/en.