Mexico City office adds multi-country capability to new PEAK DMC Central America
PEAK DMC, the world’s leading experiential travel operator, has chosen Costa Rica as the location for its Central America operations base with the aim of growing sustainable tourism beyond its borders.
The new office is the latest addition to the company’s fast-growing global network of local destination management companies and will be the base for 12 operations staff and 70 tour leaders, with a further four operations staff to be based in a satellite office in Mexico City.
While Mexico is one of the world’s top ten tourism destinations, the carbon-neutral travel company chose Costa Rica’s capital as its Central America hub to capitalise on the country’s extensive ecotourism experience and commitment to the environment. Last year Costa Rica produced 98 % of its electricity without fossil fuels.
The new destination management company, PEAK Central America, will operate tours in all eight countries in the region as well as running multi-country, cross-border itineraries.
Bradley John-Davis, the General Manager of PEAK Central America was appointed to the new role because of his previous experience in Latin America, as well as his work running cross-border trips as General Manager for PEAK East Africa. It’s the opportunity to help travellers discover Central America’s hidden gems that helped him make the move across continents.
“Central America is incredibly diverse, but traditionally travellers flock to just a few places while the rest of the region is made up of some of the world’s least visited destinations. That’s starting to change, with countries like Belize and Panama becoming increasingly popular amongst travellers,” says John-Davis.
“Travelling across borders through multiple-countries is the best way to experience the incredibly different landscapes and cultures of Central America and that’s what’s most exciting about this: we’re now able to create innovative new itineraries that show travellers both the iconic sites and some of the hidden places in the same trip.”
The diverse range of experiences on offer includes coffee harvesting in the Guatemalan highlands, spending the night in a Mayan village homestay and canyoneering down Costa Rica’s Rio Naranjo.
The new base in Central America opens just three months after PEAK DMC’s new office in Japan. The region was the next logical step for the growth of the PEAK DMC network, which is already well-established in South America. Many of the DMC’s existing partners in South America also have trips in Central America and wanted to see the region added to the global network.
Natalie Kidd, who as the Managing Director of PEAK DMC has overseen the growth of the network since the establishment of its first DMC in 2005 says the company’s long-term vision is to have a truly global presence.
“Over the past twelve years we’ve seen a growing global appetite for the style of sustainable and authentic local experiences that we’ve built our business on. That increasing demand for immersive travel is fuelling the growth of our network of destination management companies as clients look to combine local knowledge with the reassurance of global best practise to deliver the best experiences to their customers.
Central America is one of the regions that our clients have been asking us to operate in, so we’re thrilled to add another piece of the puzzle to the PEAK DMC network,” says Kidd.
PEAK DMC opened its first destination management company in Vietnam in 2005 and has become the world leader in creating innovative experiential travel for tour operator clients. Next year, Iceland will become the twentieth destination management company in the company’s global network, which now operates in more than 90 countries across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas.