Country: Brazil

Organization: BrazilMax

Year the initiative began: 2001

Project Website: www.BrazilMax.com

Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions:

• Main barrier addressed: Corporate monolithic approach to tourism
• Main insight addressed: Market authenticity

Youtube upload:

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 detial. 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 developement would be most beneficial in spearding 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.

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?
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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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).

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 teh 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

Contact Information
Mr. Bill Hinchberger
Founding Editor
BrazilMax
Rua Teodoro Sampaio, 1020
editor@brazilmax.com