gloCaltravel is now featuring a page dedicated to Spanish Language Schools in Mexico.
Learning the language of the country you are travelling to is the first step to a deep understanding of its culture and traditions, and makes your trip more fruitful and exciting.

For travelers interested in a full immersion experience, I strongly recommend to enrol in a language program which involves a home-stay with a Mexican family.
Living with a Mexican family offers language students a great opportunity to converse in Spanish daily and experience Mexican culture first hand. In many cases they become part of the family, and are invited to join in activities, celebrations, and family outings.

Most schools assure you that the family you will be staying with has been carefully selected, and that you can expect clean rooms, tasty meals and personal attention, which is not difficult to believe if you have ever experienced Mexican hospitality. In some cases families are even ‘trained by the school to facilitate students’ learning’

But how about training the students to facilitate the life of their host families? This is something I have never seen on any website. I believe a briefing on some local customs should be taken into consideration, together with a reminder of some basic rules which might sound obvious, but – unfortunately - are frequently forgotten. Here is some useful info if you are planning to stay with a Mexican family, together with some dos and don’ts:

Meals: In Mexico many people eat a hearty breakfast, which typically include eggs, beans, tortillas, fresh fruit and tea/coffee. The largest meal is the midday meal, which is usually served between 2pm and 3 pm and includes a starter soup or salad, a main course (meat or fish), vegetables and a dessert. The evening meal is much lighter and usually includes Mexican antojitos (sandwiches, quesadillas, tacos, etc…).

- Always communicate in advance special dietary requirements and food allergies.
- Make sure you eat enough at breakfast and lunch, in order to avoid food-hunting in the house in the late evenings.
- Try not to offend the cook by refusing to try something new.
- Usually home-stay rules do not allow guests to have access to the family kitchen; therefore if you prefer doing your own cooking I would suggest some alternative accommodation option.

Religion: You must bear in mind that Mexico is a very Catholic country, and that social formality is important.
- Make sure you are informed about the family’s norms and traditions and respect them.
- A ‘decent’ dress code is always recommended both in the house and outside.
- If you join your host family to the church or to other religious events, you should not wear shorts or sleeveless shirts
- At no time can a member of the opposite sex be invited to a student’s bedroom.

Other social norms:
- You are expected to wear shoes or slippers in the house; as in most parts of Mexico going barefoot is not acceptable.
- Always ask for permission before inviting others into the home
- Try not to disturb the family’s peace while coming in late in the evenings.
- Never make phone calls from the family’s home: most schools offer Internet and phone services.
- Although some ladies might offer to wash your laundry or let you use the washing machine, this service should never be expected. Take your washing to the laundrette instead, or ask the language school for a laundry service as this is often provided.

These are just a few tips based on my experience ‘as a guest’ in Mexico… I would like to invite language schools with home-stay programs to add comments with more suggestions to this list, based on the feedback they usually receive from students and families. Actually, do language schools ever ask host families for feedback, or just the students? This is something else I would be interested in finding out…

An article about ecotourism published on a hotel booking website’s newsletter made me think again about the dilemma shared by eco and responsible travel operators: when will our efforts be rewarded with a decent share of the huge travel industry’s profits?

The author says we are all interested in green issues, but when it comes to taking action in the preservation of the environment we all think we should be granted an exemption. He detected an increase in bookings for luxury resorts with little or no interest from his customers for ‘green travel’ options coming from an eco-friendly website he partnered with.

There is no doubt that peoples’ statements are often inconsistent with their behaviour and that eco-travel is still considered a niche market, however, ecotourism has been consistently growing between 20% and 34% a year from its beginnings in the 90s, and the 2004 figures showed a growth which was 3 times faster than the tourism industry as a whole.

The eco-friendly website Mr. Gezik mentions in his article is gloCaltravel. I approached him a few years ago as I was looking for a technology provider and he decided to cooperate with us. He shared our hopes of a concrete business opportunity following the increase of the eco-travel demand. We had the same business background (I had worked as a manager for an online travel agency) and thought that successful business models could be easily applied to different market segments.

As it turned out, we were totally wrong, and I had to learn at my expense that the ecotourism industry has its own rules, characteristics and rhythms.
I understood I had to change my approach to the operations management, revaluating the personal relationships with our clients who wanted to be told the stories behind the product, and to hear how their holiday would make a difference.

I decided to bin models involving instant reservations and credit card bookings (which was very hard for me, considering I live in symbiosis with my laptop and love to sort out my information, shopping and entertainment with a couple of clicks). I chose to forget about easy and immediate profits, instead investing in longer term projects, taking small steps and never losing sight of the company’s mission and philosophy. Eco-travelers can be very inquisitive and demanding, and considering the many operators who jump on the eco band wagon for mere marketing purposes, they have the right to be suspicious.

I believe this is the right way to get interest, then positive feedback, then trust from your visitors, who eventually become regular clients and effective advertisers through word of mouth marketing.
But slow progress is not often appreciated and it takes a lot of patience and passion to keep going. Many travel operators do not have time to email clients back and forth providing personalized information or to double check the eco-policies of every single supplier. And how about being ready to offer assistance to accommodation/tour providers located in developing countries, who often are not used to email reservations, extranets, online payments, or any other e-commerce tools?

Promoting hotels run by staff who are familiar with online availability and instant reservations is definitely less time consuming, and more profitable.

I am still far from seeing rapid economic returns… a few years ago in Mexico City I met Verena Gerber, director of Ecoparaiso Xixim, an eco-lodge you will be able to find easily all over the Internet. She told me I had chosen a very bad industry if I was interested in making money. I said profits were not at the base of my motivation, but I firmly believed the eco-travel community would continue growing. Today there are many successful companies amongst those who managed to stick to their eco-policies and Verena has done a fantastic job herself in promoting what is now one of the best known eco-resorts in Mexico.

Even though I understand Mr. Gezik’s disappointment; with a healthy dose of optimism and the knowledge there are others out there who are not in this game just to make quick money, I can not share his views with regards the lack of potential for ecotourism.

There will always be people looking for boasts of luxury and artificial paradises, which will always be easy to sell (see the rapid growth of Dubai), but many customers will be willing to listen to alternative proposals, and I think operators should try a bit harder to diversify their offers.

And then who said that ecotourism must be synonymous with a lack of comfort and facilities and can not include some responsible and sustainable luxury? But this is another issue which deserves a separate discussion…