What About Juan Valdez?
Where: Colombia
Colombia: Fantastic tourist destination, or great place to get kidnapped? Obviously the Colombian government hopes people will start thinking of the country as the former, and they've just launched a $4 million ad campaign to win hearts, minds, and tourist bucks.
The tagline--Colombia is Passion--is innocuous enough. It certainly worked well enough on Lonely Planet, who picked it as a top ten destination for this year. It didn't quite do the trick on the reporter in the Guardian covering the story, though. In the "Fast Facts on Colombia" section of the article lifted from the BBC, the three most famous Colombians are listed as Gabriel Garcia Marquez (not a drug lord), Pablo Escobar (a drug lord) and Manuel Velez (leader of the FARC counter-insurgency).
Well, if nothing else, all three of those men are certainly passionate.
[Image via Pablo.../Flickr]
Related Stories:
· Colombia launches tourism drive [Guardian]
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