Within six months, several Colombian retail agencies expect to start promoting their services as an inbound travel operator under the Travelsavers Colombia brand. The multiagent project is led by the $200 million, largely corporate agency, Viajes Calitour, in Bogota.
Viajes Calitour has 17 locations in the capital, in part because 70% of its business is government travel, but it has none in other cities.
Earlier this year, the agency bought the exclusive Travelsavers license for Colombia and, according to Cesar Escobar, operations manager, the agency immediately began signing on affiliates in destinations across the country.
By June, it had assembled a group of seven, with a projected upper limit of 30 affiliates nationwide.
In addition to the Bogota home office, another of the first seven is Viajes Calitour in Cali. The name is the same, but it is a separate agency, with some inbound business from bird-watchers and medical tourists. In 1971, it was founded by Escobar's grandmother, Ligia Ospina, and she is still in charge.
After Ospina opened a Bogota branch, Escobar's mother bought it and built a different kind of business. Besides the government travel, another 10% of the Bogota sales are corporate, and only 20% are leisure.
"For years, we had meant to make a network of travel agents here to promote inbound travel to Colombia," Escobar said. "We were waiting for something to make the glue for that."
Travelsavers turned out to be that glue, and it gives the Colombia agents direct access for promotional purposes to a network of U.S. and Canadian travel agencies.
The time had to be right, too. There were "a lot of years," Escobar said, when there was no inbound business to speak of. Despite the violence in the country, Viajes Calitour continued to book travel, whether by government staff, businesspeople or vacationers.
Within the country, Escobar said, "We flew, we didn't drive. Colombians traveled to the main touristic places, which were open and well guarded. Now we have more options" for getting around.
He noted a paradox: "Now, Mexico is worse off, and Americans are looking for new options, and Costa Rica can't have it all."
Escobar is bullish about his homeland, and Travelsavers Colombia is his project.
He emphasizes the country's diversity, referring both to physical attributes -- mountains, shoreline on two oceans and the Amazon -- and Colombian culture.
He expects to build trips around coffee themes, involving hacienda stays, horseback riding and, of course, coffee tasting; Bogota for the cuisine and for the continent's largest Spanish-American theater festival; Cali for its salsa schools and annual Mardi Gras-like festival, plus whale-watching on the Pacific.
Escobar's mother, Ligia, the agency's president, said Travelsavers Colombia would sell things the country is not known for, including golf, bird-watching and ecotourism.
Cesar Escobar sees Costa Rica as a model as well as a competitor. He said network members would certify that their suppliers abide by certain standards. "We see that as the future of travel agencies, vouching for fair trade and sustainability in the region."
In addition, he said, "there is a real possibility we will build some of the infrastructure ourselves" to ensure hotels meet the standards.
Another key objective in assembling a network of providers, he said, is to provide service with a local touch. Besides, network members will have more skin in the game than operators working with one-off contracts.
"We won't be price-driven, but we won't necessarily have the highest prices either," Cesar Escobar said. The ready access to other Travelsavers agencies can lower overhead and make a "big difference" to prices, he said.
As for the U.S. State Department's travel warning for Colombia, he said, if it remains in place, "We will speak the truth."
His plans include promotions that use testimonials by American visitors, and "I hope they will say that Colombia is like other places [where some areas are off limits] ... and that they have a good agent who tells you places where you go and where you do not go. Guidance will be one of our services."