The AdventureNext Latin America 2023 event brought together, in Colombia, over 250 legal representative people from the tourism industry specialized in extreme experiences.
Considering Chile’s potential in tourism areas of nature and adventure, and the importance of strengthening the bonds to drive the sustainable development of the activity, Sernatur led the Chilean delegation which participated for three days at AdventureNext Latin America 2023, one of the main events in the section, which Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) organizes once a year.
The meeting, which issuer tour operators, wholesaler, consultants, mass media and travel content creators from various countries attended, contemplated an academic schedule, networking spaces, and the Colombia Marketplace where new companies were introduced and discussions about product development were generated.
Cristóbal Benítez, Sernatur national director, pointed out that “we have participated actively in this encounter. We went there with a delegation of nine tourist companies operating in the Araucanía, Los Ríos, Los Lagos, Aysén, Magallanes, Coquimbo, Metropolitan and Arica and Parinacota regions, who held around 14 meetings, each one prescheduled at the Marketplace instance, allowing them to get to know the offer of our country related to tourism adventure, and to settle on the alliances to extend its participation in the commercialization chain”.
The tourism authority also had meetings with authorities from other countries, among them, the Ecuadorian tourism secretary, Niels Olsen, with the aim of exchanging experiences about how to promote Latin American destinations attributes on nature and adventure tourism, as well as addressing the challenges to contribute to good practices which promote collaboration within the local communities to form a truly sustainable voyage experience.
“Adventure and nature tourism is part of the differentiating attributes that we promote Chile with, especially on priority markets in our strategy of international promotion. Opportunities like this not only allow us to see attractive experiences to the new tourist profile, but also contribute in terms of the offer training and the alliance creation to strongly promote all the region, thinking about far markets”, Benítez said.
This is because Chile sets the norm on this subject. It has been the consecutive unquestioned winner for seven years as an adventure destination in South America by the World Travel Awards, and for six years kept leading the ranking as a global adventure destination. Moreover, it is the country in the region that has unique and diverse geography, standing out because of its natural attributes.
In fact, in 2019 and 2020, Chile was chosen as the best nature destination in South America, and in 2022 as the best green destination in the world by the Oscar tourism awards.
Tourism as a peace instrument
This year, the meeting slogan was ‘’tourism as a peace instrument’’ to magnify the abilities that music and tourism has in common and, especially, as communication instruments between nations from around the world.
For the same reason, Bogotá was the host in this version, not only because it is one of the UNESCO Cities of Music (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), but also because Colombia has more than 1,045 musical rhythms to share experiences in matters of adventure tourism as a peace instrument. The organizers highlighted that music and tourism are more than entertainment, that’s why at the encounter there were spaces where people could make contacts and experience the music, the culture and traditional Colombian cuisine at the event.
