Questions and Answers
Ekkaia, a life experience, we offer routes that permit arriving at scenes of great beauty, led by experienced local guides, met by families from the area.
1. How long has the business been operating and how did it start?
Together with our beneficiaries and suppliers, we have organized trips for more than 9 years, with excellent results of satisfaction and appreciation valued by the visitors.
2. What is your company's mission?
Ekkaia’s fundamental motivation is to support the promotion and commercialization of products offered directly by the community. This way there are productive sustainable alternatives that guarantee improvement in the quality of life for the autochthonous population as well as the conservation of its cultural and natural patrimony.
Part of M21390’s mission is to open up spaces for respectful and constructive encounters between cultures through trips and responsible tourism and assessment of the authenticity.
3. What does your company specialize in?
We offer a network of paths designed for excursionists and nature lovers, who go along ancestral roadways that unite villages and population centers. Along these roadways, travelers can rest and “lodge” in the homes of families prepared to receive you adequately. These houses, which have begun to be called Mucuposadas by the beneficiaries of PAT (“Mucu” is an Indian voice that means “place of”) have been consolidated for 10 years as a brand for lodging and are organized in networks that attend tourist’s needs along the Inn Roads. In some cases, when there are no Mucuposadas on the way, local guides set up tents.
4. Who is the founder or owner of the company and briefly describe his/her past activities?
Ekkaia is a travel and tourist agency created in 2004 by the Programa Andes Tropicales, a non profit organization that designs and carries out community based tourism development projects in the Andean countries.
5. What is your most popular travel package and why?
Through Ekkaia organized communities offer not only a trip but a life experience in which the visitor, as well as the host, receive mutual benefits, not only material but also philosophical.
Each one of our trips looks to:
• Provide our travelers with alternative authentic and respectful encounters with local cultures. Insure that communities receive tangible benefits through our clients’ visits.
• Protect and conserve the natural environment and cultural heritage of the local populations.
• Guarantee our travelers’ respect for the way of life of the local communities, through timely and complete information, as well as a meticulous selection of market niches apt for this type of product.
• Provide information about our work as an incentive and support for sustainable development.
• Guarantee the monitoring and accompanying the community development process after the projects are concluded.
6. What is the best compliment you received from a client?
This is one of our favorites:
The co-ordination lies in the hands of Ekkaia and Programa Andes Tropicales, a non-profit organization typically for this kind of projects.
They did a marvelous job in few years to structure this program and to transform these people from farmers to qualified hosts.
We congratulate them for these achievements and we are very grateful that thanks to Ekkaia and Programa Andes Tropicales we could realize and enjoy this adventurous and splendid trekking !
Paul & Frieda Meuleman
Belgium / Europe
|
