South American Travel Agents Learning to Sell Vallarta-Nayarit

The Riviera Nayarit and Puerto Vallarta convention and visitors bureaus concluded their promotional activities in South America for 2014 by training 25 agents in Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. This necessitated three separate FAM trips divided by country: 10 agents from Chile visited the region from November 22-25; 9 agents from Ecuador were here from December 1 – 3; and 6 agents from Argentina visited from December 6-12. The groups performed site inspections in several hotels, as well as the requisite visits to the top attractions for tourists, including Sayulita, San Pancho and the Islas Marietas, to name but a few. The objective of these trips was for the agents to experience for themselves the tourist attractions available in Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit so they can sell them more effectively and with greater assurance thanks to their first-hand knowledge. “Promotion in South America has been a great success thanks to the strategic integration of the public relations, advertising and marketing segments. Several commercial alliances have been forged with these emerging markets and we’re certain to see a tangible return on investment very soon in the number of visitors to the destinations,” said Pamela Zepeda, Sales and Marketing Manager for the Riviera Nayarit CVB. These efforts were a continuation of the Vallarta-Nayarit joint campaign spearheaded by the Mexico Tourism Board (MTB). South America is a potential market as it is seeking to experience more to Mexico than just the Caribbean.