WEAVING THE WEB

Interpersonal Tourism
A Conversation with H. Peter Jorgensen
by Ron Mader

CONVERSATIONS

This conversation was conducted online in May 2006. I had the pleasure of meeting H. Peter Jorgensen at the Practicing Sustainable Tourism Panel in Louisville.

PHOTO GALLERY: Globalize Yourself
SLIDESHOW

How do you describe your work?

I view my work in rural tourism development as being a conduit between the tour industry and the operating agribusiness or agri-heritage site. I find the rural sites that the tour operator would have no way of discovering and find the marketing connection to the group travel industry that the site would have neither time nor resources to ferret out. The twin pillars of this kind of development are environmental/heritage conservation and rural economic development through interpersonal tourism.

Interpersonal tourism is a term I use to describe any tour experience where the visitor is face-to-face with people living out their heritage daily in the present. I also consult with organizations seeking to develop this type of program in their region or heritage site.

What is your involvement with Silos and Smokestacks?

Over the past seven years I have been involved with Silos & Smokestacks in developing rural tourism opportunities in a variety of capacities, but chiefly acting as their group tour manager. I have done this through finding and evaluating potential touring locations, attending group travel marketplace conventions, and building relationships with national and international tour operators and other related organizations.

During your presentation at the NTA meeting you remarked that tour operators needed to find a way for farmers to tell their own stories. Can you expound on what this means?

First, one needs to have a picture of the emerging milieu in the group travel industry. The demographic of the motorcoach traveler is changing, as baby boomers become seniors (a term they dislike). The first baby boomers are turning 60 this year and will completely transform not only group travel, but travel in general as well as health care, housing and environmental concerns.

Baby boomers are fiercely independent. The last thing they want to do is get on a coach with a bunch of strangers. They want to have authentic experiences, not manufactured experiences. They will likely have been to the usual attractions and are looking for cultural immersion and reality-based experiences when they travel. They will tend to be healthier. They are as likely to want a mountain bike with them on a trip as a walker. They are interested in lifelong learning. And the only way you're going to get them on a motorcoach, no matter how luxurious, is if they think the only way they are going to have the advertised experience is to climb aboard.

The key words above are authentic and learning. Which brings me to your question. For the emerging group traveler, the tour operator will need to provide experiences that embody those terms. In the case of agritourism this means the visitor is engaged in talking to real farmers on working farms and learning about food production first hand from the person that steers the $500,000 combine linked to a global position satellite or the person who is marketing his/her organic lettuce at the local farmer's market.

The operator either needs to connect with a rural destination developer (such as Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area) or they need to scout out the rural landscape themselves and find the articulate and enthusiastic rural spokespersons who can provide that authentic learning experience. No guide, regardless of his or her knowledge base and personality, can take the place of the person who is living the life being shared with the visitor.

How have you arranged trips in Mexico?

Last winter was our first trip to Mexico. My wife and I accompanied 14 education majors and 11 Spanish majors from our local college (Luther College) for the entire month of January to Puebla City, Cuetzalan and San Miguel Tzinacapan, a tiny indigenous village near Cuetzalan. We also took a quick weekend trip to Oaxaca City for a break. The purpose of the trip was to immerse the students (and ourselves) in the culture and schools of those cities and towns.

A U.S. ex-pat living in Puebla for more than 20 years, Dr. David Brye, who specializes in providing that type of tour to student and other groups, arranged the experiences there. David has been a compadre (godfather) to many young people in San Miguel Tzinacapan and our experiences there would have been impossible without his help in arranging the visits. In Puebla, the students and we stayed with host families scattered around the city.

In San Miguel Tzinacapan, we were invited into homes for meals and some of the students participated in a local band practice and subsequent public performance.

Students from the college received credit for Luther's "J-term" for observing in the schools. We are scheduled to return next J-term with another group. It is rich and rewarding experience we are looking forward to repeating.

Do you see any synergies between agritourism in the US and Mexico?

While I am not very knowledgeable yet in this area, I am very interested in seeing what is possible. The current climate and understanding of many in the United States is colored by the ongoing emotionally charged immigration debate.

I doubt you could find many who realize the extensive development of agriculture in Mexico. When they think of Mexican agriculture they tend to think of the workers in fields in the United States. So in that sense, if they were made aware of Mexico's own agricultural strength, I think that reciprocal learning tours might be quite marketable.

Mexico exports approximately $10 billion worth of agricultural products into the United States each year. And under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has become one of the largest and fastest growing markets for U.S. agricultural products (source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service).

Mutual tourism (exchange programs) are one of the best ways for developing cultural understanding as people immersing themselves in another's culture rarely fail to come away without forming long-lasting friendships based on common humanity. It certainly was the case for our student travelers and us. We were on the receiving end of interpersonal tourism at its best.

Do you have any topics of interest that should be discussed?

The idea that ecotourism has a brand that brings to mind only devotees of free-climbing El Capitan or seeing the Galapagos in an open launch is certainly exhilarating but we all live in an environment and those environments can be understood, appreciated and (dare I repeat where others have spoken more eloquently) better cared for.

It's wonderful to appreciate the rain forest and fight for its preservation but its no less an issue to understand that the heart of the cities most people live in are environments. And once they are understood as environments instead of sacrifice zones, the more likely the average citizen will start making the day-to-day decisions that may result in an overall improvement in the health of those places for the people, plants and the relatively few animals that live in them.

Ok, most of us can agree on leaving out improving the conditions for ratus norvegicus (the common rat) but there are ways to make cities healthier for all of us -- and an informed populous may be the best long-term solution. The health of a nation isn't often ordered from the top down (with the possible exception of Bhutan) but is wrested from the controllers' greedy hands by a stubborn, informed and resolute citizenry.