tory paez

Background: Over 90% of the island's inhabitants are fisherman and women; however, there is a government mandated veda each year, which now lasts for four months of the year. As less and less income can be relied upon for fishing, we planned to open up additional streams of income with tourism to Isla de Chira. Isla de Chira already offers so much to visitors; however, with our project work, we aim to address the lack of trust and cooperation amongst the tourist-related organizations, increase the amount of tourism to the island ($$), and enhance the overall visitor experience. In previous meetings, we identified island strengths and opportunities, as well as prioritized projects to take on to increase tourism on the island. For this specific project, we aimed to increase the online presence of local businesses.

 

Initially, we partnered with seven of the eight "cabinas" (i.e. hotels, lodges) on the island, as well as one restaurant, to build a successful online presence utilizing Facebook, Google Mi Negocio (Google for Business), and TripAdvisor. Through one-on-one meetings, we first took professional photos of each small business. We also utilized that time to build confianza and understand more about business operations and the owner's future goals. We then created (or built upon existing) Facebook, Google and TripAdvisor profiles with each business owner to teach them about each website, how it can be utilized, and how to manage it. 

 

In addition, we spent a significant amount of time researching tourism best practices, contacting and participating in online site forums, and constructing a community Google+ Isla de Chira page to support this initiative work. We also created support tools, such as an initial questionnaire (to benchmark and track progress) and a work partnership agreement (success factors). We also monitored online presence progress in terms of comments/reviews, likes, ranking/stars, followers, etc. By the end of my service, I partnered with 16 small businesses to create 13 Facebook pages, 13 Google Mi Negocio profiles, and 8 TripAdvisor profiles to ultimately increase tourism revenue for Isla de Chira. 

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Purpose: To develop a unified online presence for local small businesses to promote tourism to the island and enhance the visitor experience

 

Audience: Small businesses in Isla de Chira

 

Materials:

• Computer

• Internet 

• Access to Facebook, TripAdvisor, Google for Business websites

 

Documents: 

• Presentation about our ecotourism work (link)

• Presentation about Isla de Chira Tourism Collective - Spanish (link)

• Isla de Chira Tourism Collective meeting presentations (link, link)

 

Lesson Learned: The business owners' technology abilities varied greatly! We had some entrepreneurs who already knew how to manage Facebook and learning a new platform like TripAdvisor and Google Mi Negocio was a breeze. However, for others, we were teaching them how to use a computer for the first time or how to utilize the Facebook app. Because we wanted to create the profiles together (not for them) and teach them how to manage those profiles moving forward, it took a lot more time than we anticipated. 

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