Scaling a DMC that's Challenging Conventions & Changing Communities (w/ Rodrigo Atuesta of Impulse Travel)

Tourpreneur Tour Business Podcast

This episode is going to inspire and surprise you. Rodrigo Atuesta is the CEO of Impulse Travel. From humble beginnings as a guide and Couch Surfer, Rodrigo and his partners have built a DMC in Colombia that has now served over 30,000 travelers. But the way he's built it has been extraordinary, challenging assumptions about how DMCs should work, and understanding the responsibility and power that a travel company has to transform destinations.

In this far-reaching conversation, Tourpreneur's Mitch Bach talks a variety of topics with Rodrigo:

• What he learned about hospitality and “meaningful interactions” from his days of Couch Surfing
• how he participates in and hosts FAM trips with agents to promote his business and country
• how to challenge and change global stereotypes about Colombia
• his approach to the “co-creation” process as a DMC working with tour operators
• the surprising lessons learned from his experience with Booking.com’s Booking Booster accelerator program
• what true leadership … soft skills, good leadership is the capacity to reinvent yourself. Learning to be vulnerable in leadership perspectives.
• the importance of thinking intentionally about company culture as you build your company, not after.
• his discovery of how developing tourism in a community, and fostering local leadership brought change and impact to a community… watching the murder rate drop.
• how you can build a company as a response to a need within a community, rather than imposing your vision on a place.
• His team's HEART design process for product development: (Human Encounters & Connection, Economic Opportunity, Authenticity, Regenerative Narratives, Top Notch)
• his thinking around how to tell the story of Colombia and develop tourism in a way that improves communities and changes narratives
• how Impulse takes travelers' assumptions about what they want to do (see Pablo Escobar sights) and changes those intentions into something positive
• how his DMC builds bridges with other tour operators through partnerships, creating an association, and supporting each other to grow the whole pie.
• Impulse's surprising “total transparency” model, in which they disclose everything down to the penny to the client!

My favorite quote from the episode:

"A true leader is anyone who is aware of their impact on other people, and acts on this awareness.”

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• the Tourpreneur California Road Show starting December 8, 2024 thanks to our partnership with GetYourGuide
• TourpreneurCONNECT:NYC sales & operations conference in February
• Tourpreneur Shindigs — global small group meetups in dozens of countries around the world

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