BrazilMax: Bill Hinchbeger's online travel guide to Brazil
BrazilMax (http://www.BrazilMax.com) is an online travel guide that features sustainable and community tourism. It won a “Best of the Web” citation from Transitions Abroad magazine and has been acclaimed in The Guardian of London, the SonntagsZeitung of Zurich, the Scotsman on Sunday, O Dia of Rio de Janeiro and other publications. BrazilMax Radio - http://www.brazilmax.com/brazilmax.cfm/id/17 - features Brazilian music and interviews with musicians and other artists in English. Founding editor Bill Hinchberger is a former correspondent in Brazil for The Financial Times and Business Week. To receive BrazilMax OnTime, an e-newsletter with alerts about new content on BrazilMax, send a blank message to: BrazilMax-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
Rua Teodoro Sampaio, 1020, Bloco Res, Apto. 1803
City
Sao Paulo
State/Province
SP
Postal/Zip Code
05406-050
Country
Brazil
Year innovation began
2001
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourist experience and benefit to tourists
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
Destination-stewardship business
Geographic location
Urban.
Plot your innovation within the Mosaic of Solutions
Main insight addressed
Market authenticity
Name Your Project
BrazilMax: Bill Hinchbeger's online travel guide to Brazil
Describe Your Idea
BrazilMax (http://www.BrazilMax.com) is an online travel guide that features sustainable and community tourism. It won a “Best of the Web” citation from Transitions Abroad magazine and has been acclaimed in The Guardian of London, the SonntagsZeitung of Zurich, the Scotsman on Sunday, O Dia of Rio de Janeiro and other publications. BrazilMax Radio - http://www.brazilmax.com/brazilmax.cfm/id/17 - features Brazilian music and interviews with musicians and other artists in English. Founding editor Bill Hinchberger is a former correspondent in Brazil for The Financial Times and Business Week. To receive BrazilMax OnTime, an e-newsletter with alerts about new content on BrazilMax, send a blank message to: BrazilMax-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation?
To help prospective visitors decide where and how to travel in Brazil.
How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
Travelers need high quality, independent coverage – especially when analyzing community tourism destinations. They need to substantiate claims of sustainability. And they must feel comfortable that they will have an enjoyable and memorable vacation.
Describe your approach in detail. How is it innovative?
BrazilMax.com is an online travel guide that draws on founding editor Bill Hinchbeger’s two decades of experience as a foreign correspondent in Brazil. The portal can be described as a cross between a guidebook and a travel magazine. Sustainable and community tourism endeavors are featured as part of the mix, not isolated in a “politically correct” ghetto.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
To ensure BrazilMax's survival, we need more advertising. To expand beyond Brazil, we have already begun discussions with independent journalists who are interested in setting up local franchises.
Impact
In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
We want to help responsible tourists plan their travel.
Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts? 200 words or less
BrazilMax.com won a “Best of the Web” citation from Transitions Abroad magazine and has been acclaimed in The Guardian of London, the SonntagsZeitung of Zurich, the Scotsman on Sunday, O Dia of Rio de Janeiro and other publications.
Average daily traffic figures for 2008 through February 18:
- unique visitors - 1,793
- pageviews - 6,929
- hits - 37,256
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
We help travelers find places that best fit their expectations.
Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area’s cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
The whole point of BrazilMax is to bring that kind of information to prospective travelers as they plan their trips. We can imagine that communities take greater pride in their local attractions when outsiders show interest.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
Communities benefit when travelers visit destinations that are featured on BrazilMax.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
BrazilMax generates a modest but steady stream of revenue, but not yet enough to allow founding editor Bill Hinchberger to focus full-time on the business. Growth depends on the time he can devote to the project. Demand should at least track the growth in foreign tourism to Brazil. Franchising opportunities could take the initiative to a global scale.
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
Financing has come primarily in the form of sweat equity from founding editor Bill Hinchberger and his late wife Maruska. Hinchberger can count on a little pro bono help from his friends in the journalism world.
What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
With sufficient revenue, Bill Hinchberger would devote his energies full-time to the project.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
We need to focus on advertising sales.
The Story
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Bill Hinchberger is the founding editor of BrazilMax (http://www.BrazilMax.com), an award-winning online travel guide to Brazil and host of BrazilMax Radio (http://www.brazilmax.com/brazilmax.cfm/id/17). A former correspondent for The Financial Times and Business Week, Hinchberger holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies and a B.A. in Political Science, both from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the former president of the São Paulo Foreign Press Club (1995-99) and a member of the ASJA and the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA).
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
After a couple of decades in the mainstream media, including stints in Brazil with The Financial Times and Business Week, I became frustrated by my inability to publish stories I thought essential. I reinvented myself as an independent digital media entrepreneur – the founding editor and head janitor of an online guide for foreigners called BrazilMax.com.
Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on the competition homepage.
BrazilMax (http://www.BrazilMax.com) is an online travel guide that features sustainable and community tourism. It won a “Best of the Web” citation from Transitions Abroad magazine and has been acclaimed in The Guardian of London, the SonntagsZeitung of Zurich, the Scotsman on Sunday, O Dia of Rio de Janeiro and other publications. BrazilMax Radio - http://www.brazilmax.com/brazilmax.cfm/id/17 - features Brazilian music and interviews with musicians and other artists in English. Founding editor Bill Hinchberger is a former correspondent in Brazil for The Financial Times and Business Week. To receive BrazilMax OnTime, an e-newsletter with alerts about new content on BrazilMax, send a blank message to: BrazilMax-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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Comments
I research, write, and lecture on travel. Although I am from the US I had opportunities to study and travel in Brazil as early as high school, followed by study during college, and now chances to travel there professionally. Over that period I've picked up a lot of firsthand experience, contacts, and favorite places. Whenever anyone asks me how to travel in Brazil I send them to BrazilMax.
BrazilMax.com is an extraordinary destination resource -- great production values, intelligent writing, relevant locations covered, and an active Forum. Even so I send people there because of Bill Hinchberger himself.
I write on a very specific travel niche -- travelers with disabilities. For years now Bill has had a keen interest in our community.
Brazil has emerged as one of the world leaders in innovation for our community. We are very active there. Bill has been an always-on-tap resource for me whether I need ideas for a story, fact-checking, or travel services for a friend. He understands one of the key principles of social inclusion -- participation without stigma. He also understands that major contribution of disability culture to tourism, Universal Design. As we say:
Universal Design is human-centered design of everything with everyone in mind... It has a parallel in the green design movement that also offers a framework for design problem solving based on the core value of environmental responsibility. Universal Design and green design are comfortably two sides of the same coin but at different evolutionary stages. Green design focuses on environmental sustainability, Universal Design on social sustainability.
From my specialized perspective and privileged association I affirm that BrazilMax is a strong example of a business that enhances the environment, heritage, culture, aesthetics, and the well-being of the country it serves. It is a uniquely important contributor to the success of Brazil as a destination-of-choice for travelers with disabilities and the emerging generation of Brazilians with disabilities who are inventing new forms of socially-inclusive responsible tourism to serve them.
Dr. Scott Rains
Dear Mr. bill Hinchberger,
I am quite interested in your work because I have a sustainable eco tourism development project in a small village called Iraporanga, in Chapada diamantina , Bahia state. The region is unique as it has not been explored by tourism industry. We have a partnership with UFBA - Arqueological Department and we are presenting Petrobras Cultural a project for the communities to explore the rupestrian paintings on the area, wich are inumerous. We also have our project on Bid network in the name of Sustainable eco tourism - Parnaiba. Our main concern is the preservation of culture and enviromment while enhancing the community self esteem. I wish to be in touch with your project. I am currently doing a post graduation on Social Managment at UFBA. thank you. Angela Weber
Thanks for the note, Angela. I sent you a direct message through the system, but in case you don't get it just go to http://www.BrazilMax.com and use the "contact" function on the top level menu to reach me.
Bill Hinchberger
Hello Bill,
It sounds like BrazilMax is a great way for travelers to find places that suit their interests and expectations. Do you promote all travel locations on your site or only geotourism locations? What emphasis do you put on travel that enhances the culture, people and the place of a certain region?
Thanks
Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers
I’m glad to see that you got through, Dana. Others tell me that they’ve had trouble posting here.
I know that Jonathan Tourtellot has a specific definition for geotourism. In general I’d say we stick to the spirit but not the letter of his concept. I strongly believe that sustainable tourism ventures should not be confined to a ghetto of “activist” listings and guides. Our mission at BrazilMax is to provide in-depth, quality information for travelers who really want to get to know Brazil and its people, natural beauty and culture. This means that we often highlight initiatives that would qualify under any definition of geotourism. But we also tell people which restaurants dish up the best feijoada. In the end, even responsible travelers want to have fun.
You can feel the personal touch in BrazilMax.com from the moment the page loads. Instinctively, you sense that you can trust Bill Hinchberger's recommendations and advice. Navigating the site is easy and zooming in on the regional coverage is a snap. I wish more travel destinations had websites as good as this one.
Hello,
I've never been to Brazil but if I did go, BrazilMax would be the first place I'd look for information. Not only can BrazilMax help plan your vacation but it through its Art and Culture section you can in depth information that most guide books and other web sites don’t cover.
Hi Bill, great site. I am interested in connecting with you as I have a website and eco-travel guide to New Zealand. Your website has really impressive stats, huge number of incoming links etc and you obviously know what you are doing! I am wondering if you are interested in sharing any knowledge you have about such things, and maybe chat more?
Leonie
... I'd be happy to talk. What's the URL of your website?
Bill Hinchberger
BrazilMax is one of the best, if not the best, travel sites I have come across on the web -- not just because of the quality of the content and its obvious editorial independence and integrity, but even more because more than most tourism-related sites, it goes beyond the usual commercial topics (hotels, beaches, night spots, etc.) to give a deeper, more meaningful understanding of Brazil and its amazingly diverse people. I've never been to Brazil, but thanks to BrazilMax I can't wait to go.
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