When Explorandes started almost 33 years ago, as a travel agency, we had two main areas of business, the Incoming Tourism Department (known also as Receptive Tourism) and the International Department (Ticketing and Outgoing Tourism).

The latter, with consolidation and Internet has changed and, given reduced and inexistent commissions, is no longer and important area of growth and business. In our case our Ticketing department, with our Sabre Reservations System, provides a service to the Incoming Tourism Department, aside from a few company accounts, and has become a service area to the latter.

Therefore Explorandes only business and reason of existing as a Service provider is Incoming Tourism

Therefore we have decided to split the position of Incoming Tourism Manager into two areas, given the fact that this is now our only business: the Operations and the Commercial Area.

The first position which will be under the responsibility of Malu Muñoz entails the servicing of requests from our partners and includes the processing of quotations, reservations, reconfirmations, operations, voucher emissions and overall management of trips (tours, treks, expeditions, multi activity trips, etc.)

The Commercial Area, not yet assigned to a manager, will have various responsibilities. One is Ticketing and Sales, responsibility for Local clients, like wholesalers and tour operators which purchase our specialized services locally and some walk-in traffic as well as company or institutional accounts.

Another role is Marketing which includes assistance to International Events and Trade Shows in markets where we already are present or where we would like to focus our attention. Coupled this area with this role, would be responsible for Research and Development (R&D) of new products, circuits and activities.

Competition has grown tremendously for Perú as you know given the 15% yearly growth rate in visitors since 2003 on average. This has meant that there are more players in the market as suppliers and buyers of products. Some buyers have integrated into the supply chain and vice-versa.

We have an extraordinary number of partners in different markets and areas of specialization and feel that we need to focus on responding to your needs of innovation and development. This function will therefore be tied to development of new activities and specialty requests from yourselves as Perú has become more well – known, new areas are being promoted and accessibility is being resolved with new infrastructure or airport development, creating opportunities for creativity in existing circuits.

A third function is to negotiate and maintain our cost data-base by having a more pro-active role with our suppliers, agents and local operators creating adequate communications channels and responding to certain demands of the afore-mentioned changing market, ensuring that our planning and pricing is in accordance with our organizational and administrative costs.

This function would entail close coordination with the Administration and Finance Area. So to enable you to understand this structure we are illustrating it with an organizational chart for your simple comprehension.

As part of Explorandes renewal, we decided to change the company’s mission and vision, enhancing the Mystique that characterises Explorandes. All of this using a simple language that can be understood by all our field and office staff in Lima, Cusco, Puno and Huaraz, emphasising in quality of service and environmental awareness.

Mission

Exceed the visitor’s expectations by offering excellence in tourism services that generate life changing experiences between our suppliers and staff, whilst being socially and environmentally responsible.

Vision

Be the pioneering company of Incoming tourism in the Andean region committed to offer a personalized, innovative and quality service, supplying unforgettable experiences to our visitors

This year Peru will be hosting the APEC meetings. This is a good symptom that Peru’s economic and political situation remains stable and attractive to foreign investments, but in a way this will affect our operations, Due to a variation in costs of some of the basic services for our clients.

The most prestigious hotels of Peru have raised their rack and confidential rates more than 100%. This matter escapes from our hands, though not all hotels were elected as official hotels for the APEC meetings.

The Peruvian Hotel association (SHP) stated that there is still no official announcement of dates for the APEC meetings.

Tentative dates are as follows:

• Hotel Swissôtel Lima
• Hotel Sofitel Royal Park Lima
• Sonesta Hotel El Olivar
• Hotel Libertador Lima
• Hotel Melia Lima
• Hotel Plaza del Bosque
• Hotel Basadre Suites
• Hotel Crowne Plaza
• Marriott HotelHotel Sol de Oro
• Hotel El Condado
• Hotel Jose Antonio
• Hotel Maria Angola
• Hotel Embajadores
• Miraflores Park Hotel
• Casa Andina
• Hotel Las Palmeras
• Hotel Ariosto
• Hotel Sonesta Posadas del Inca
• Roosevelt Hotel and Suites
• Hotel Del Pilar Miraflores Othon

To finance this ten-million dollar project, the company is selling part of the hotel suites for 95,000 dollars each. The suites could be bought by local investors through mortgage loans. Each one of the suites is rented by the operating company, while the owner/investor will get a return on investment and the right to use the hotel facilities (Time-sharing concept)

Six years ago we bought a majority share in this, at the time, small tour-operator, specializing in river rafting and multi activity trips. They in fact ran all our trips under our initial supervision.

Over the years, the company developed its business and grew from selling about US$ 100,000 to selling US$ 600,000 last year. Mostly operating circuits in Southern Peru, with our involvement as partners in strengthening its organizational capacity (administration, accounting, finances) it is now a stand- alone.

Our partner Juan Jose (Pepe) López made us an offer to buy out our share at the end of last year. It was our view, that given the complexity of the market, it would be best to concentrate our creative efforts in strengthening and re invigorating Explorandes rather than spreading our management capacity and operational skills to another company. Although Apumayo functioned out of our Cusco office, over the last two years its growth had encroached upon our physical space making it cramped for us and thus the decision was to have Apumayo move out of our office.

This latter decision triggered the discussion about the convenience of pursuing this partnership which resulted in a friendly and convenient separation for both of us. We are sure that the ground-work has been established to enable this company to grow on its own and wish Pepe much success in developing his company.