What Colombians Think of Backpackers

There is an uphill struggle taking place in Colombia in how, where and to whom the Colombian Government should be promoting their country as a tourist destination.

As it stands the former Government of Alvaro Uribe was continually pushing for a more moneyed better educated (their words not mine) class of visitor to Colombia than the drifting hippie of yesteryear and the backpacker of today. It appears that the present Government of Juan Manuel Santos has not strayed from this policy either.

But, the hard work is perhaps not in changing the type of clientele, but in fact altering a Colombian’s perception of what a visitor or a tourist to their country is.

Cartagena and to a lesser extent Santa Marta and the island of San Andres are back on the cruise ship circuit, the Government is getting their just rewards for hard work and hard currency invested at this end, but, this tourism as we all know is not filtering down to the benefit of the local people and the small operators in these destinations. High end tourists that drop in for a day, spend in the same shops, stay in the same hotels and that eat in the same restaurants are not going to improve Colombia’s reputation or allow the country to mature as a tourist destination.

It is a well-known detail that it is the backpackers or mochileros as they are known in Spanish, are the ones that open the destination, create the routes and then allow for further genres of traveller to come on through.

Herein lays the problem. A Colombian view of a backpacker is of that of the great unwashed, a coke-snorting, poorly educated, directionless vagrant. And the sensational press in Colombia has not helped this cause with some very poor and very subjective entrapment reporting.

This is of course inaccurate.

How can we change this?

Well, it is a step by step process that takes time as there is of course a small rotten percentage of travellers that come to Colombia to participate in the country’s more illicit offerings. Here in Mompós where I own a hotel/Hostel, the first step was to allow my in-laws to make their own judgments about the travellers passing through. At first there were comments on cleanliness but gradually there was the realization that these people possessed degrees, could be architects, psychologists and lawyers as well, but as a travel preference, moved about in this fashion.

So it almost feels as if we have to take each backpacker independently of one another and take each Colombian household one by one. Then, once this has been established, Colombians as well can start to reclaim their country; younger generations can strap on their backpacks and hotfoot it between San Gil and Guane, go camping in Palomino and trek in Cocuy.

And so, one feels that it is the hostels that are working hard to defend the backpackers, because it is the Boutique Hotels of tomorrow that will benefit. These backpackers today need to find themselves in an accommodating country, make their travel plans and then down the line will return with the wives and a greater budget to spend.

Then and only then will Colombia have matured as an actual tourist destination.