http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284417186 - Monday, September 21, 2015 3:42:56 PM - IP Address:66.87.140.225
My Story, My Community, Our Future
http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284417186 - Monday, September 21, 2015 3:42:56 PM - IP Address:66.87.140.225
Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the big numbers. Especially when thinking about the tourism sector, a sector that moves over one billion tourists a year across borders, accounts for nearly 10% of the world’s GDP, generates exports of 1.5 US$ trillion annually and provides directly or indirectly for one in eleven jobs in the globe. For this very reason, it is all too easy to forget the most important number of all: one. This is the number that remains at the heart of our sector. Chefs, sommeliers, artisans, attendants, tuk-tuk drivers, tour guides, guest house owners, hotel gardeners, travel app developers, dive masters or traditional dance instructors, every day each of these people, and millions more, engage with tourists from around the globe, advancing tourism development and making a difference in their communities. This book invites readers to enter their worlds, gaining a personal insight into how their lives and that of their communities have been shaped by tourism. Inspired by the first book Tourism Stories – How tourism enriched my life, this second book Tourism Stories - My Story, My Community, Our Future is dedicated to all those impacting their communities through their work in tourism. It shows us how one person’s work has the ability to creatively unlock community value chains, proudly inspire the empowerment of women and revitalize history and traditions of the past to set the foundations for the future. Created by UNWTO to remind us of the heartbeats behind the tourism numbers, the book captured 28 voices of tourism from countries across the globe – the people who, each and every day, woke to work in the sector, playing their part, making their impact, and sharing their story. We invite you to join us on this journey and live each story with each storyteller, celebrated, one by one.
http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284417186 - Monday, September 21, 2015 3:42:56 PM - IP Address:66.87.140.225
Juan Melendez
Brewing up tourism opportunity
Landscape from El Yunque National Rainforest in Puerto Rico
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http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284417186 - Monday, September 21, 2015 3:42:56 PM - IP Address:66.87.140.225
My name is Juan Melendez, and this is my story‌ I am married to Naomi Gomez, and we have three beautiful girls: Mary, Angelica and Victoria. We come from the village of Gurråo, but we originally are from Cauas, and are currently residing here at Adjunta, Puerto Rico. We are farmers. We work in the coffee industry. Apart from the coffee we are also offering tours on our farm, we have a visitor center, we have a coffee shop that is open to the public Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Our project is called Hacienda Tres Angeles. Hacienda Tres Angeles comes from the names of our three daughters - Maria de los Angeles, Angelica Noemi and Victoria de los Angeles. We produce premium coffee, especially the Caturra variety, and sell it in the best markets. How we came into our coffee lives is an interesting story. We actually come from a totally different sector: we used to work in the air conditioning industry. Once, while we were having a cup of coffee in the neighboring village of Ayuya, we saw a bag of ripe coffee. It was so precious that my wife and I had the idea of considering
agriculture as an alternative way of life, with the upcoming economic and food crisis already announced long ago. Coffee was something that inspired us, and we decided to make our lives of it. As we did not come from the coffee industry, and we did not have relatives working in that industry, and of course we had not inherited anything, we came into coffee from the complete unknown. So we started to dive into the subject: we visited a lot of places, we met some important people who could help us, and we studied a lot through the Internet. When we arrived and settled in the farming activity, we realized the great amount of time this work took us, and we had a main concern. Apart from the coffee industry, we believe we carry out a major work: God has for us a mandate to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do this through our coffee business, and the tourists that come to our farm as guests. From here, we preach the gospel, tourists come from all over the world and they take back home the holistic experience they have lived. Through this tourist project, we have had
Juan Melendez with his wife Naomi and their three daugthers, Hacienda Tres Angeles, Puerto Rico
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http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284417186 - Monday, September 21, 2015 3:42:56 PM - IP Address:66.87.140.225
the opportunity to transform lives and have an impact. They leave with a lot more than what they thought: they leave with transformed lives, and see life differently. We have a mutual experience. We approached the Tourism Company and managed to have them endorse our project. We are the first agro-tourism company endorsed by the Tourism Company of Puerto Rico. The tourism sector is the main channel of arrival of our clients. The Municipality of Ajunta also sends us many visitors. In fact, we are practically the only agro-tourism experience they recommend to visitors. We have received tourists from all over the world: China, Japan, India, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, Italy, Spain. We have had tourists from the entire Americas, from Canada to Argentina. We were able to reach all parts of the world through the Tourism Company.
The good that is created by our coffee business is not just for me and my family. During the harvest we create up to 85 jobs on top of the jobs created in the process area and in the tourism activities, we have created 100 jobs. The tours currently offered by Hacienda Tres Angeles are guided tours. When they arrive here at nine in the morning, we give them a short introduction in the visitor center, we then go to the farm and teach them about practices and agricultural economy, about the coffee economy, maintenance of coffee plantations, the different varieties of coffee, flora, fauna of the area. We also teach them about hydrology and geography and secondary areas. Then we go to the visitors´ center, where we show them the coffee making process, including the development, the grains selection process and milling process that we offer here. Following the process of making coffee, visitors come to the coffee shop where we teach them the roasting process of coffee, which consists of the toasting and tasting. We offer different grains, different roasts, all of exquisite quality and tasting differently according to the type of roasting that took
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place. The tour ends up here, and this is when many people decide to stay longer with us, have lunch, or spend the afternoon at Hacienda. I love everything about it coffee fascinates me. One day I was asked how I would describe the process of coffee mill and I told them that this was an extreme sport, many workers processing the coffee earn up to 25 pounds in a harvest. It is a very physical job, and it takes a long time. It sometimes takes up to 22 hours and workers have to start working the next day at 6 am again. This work keeps you fit, healthy. You also get to meet a lot of people in the tourism sector.
We try to have an impact on people’s lives, and motivate them. It is great to see our workers finishing their days satisfied. We put love and dedication in everything we do here, from the agricultural part to the tourism part. We are all involved in this, giving our best to Puerto Rico.
http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9789284417186 - Monday, September 21, 2015 3:42:56 PM - IP Address:66.87.140.225
The World Tourism Organization, a United Nations specialized agency, is the leading international organization with the decisive and central role in promoting the development of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. It serves as a global forum for tourism policy issues and a practical source of tourism know-how. Its membership includes 158 countries, 6 territories, 2 permanent observers and more than 450 Affiliate Members. With the kind support of