Tourism businesses improve their industry-specific professional networking through Arnaldo Rodriguez's online business platform.
CONCORD, CALIF. – FreeNomads.com, an online business platform dedicated to tourism professionals, announces it has made more than 100,000 business connections between tourism professionals in 133 countries worldwide. The company’s founder and CEO, Arnaldo Rodriguez, says this accomplishment demonstrates how FreeNomads has helped tourism businesses of all sizes successfully connect to markets and promote their services.
“FreeNomads levels the playing field in the tourism sector by providing all members with an equal opportunity to compete globally,” says Rodriguez. “This means whether you’re a new business or have years of experience, and whether you have a large marketing budget or a small one, your business has a global reach in our growing community of tourism professionals.”
Rodriguez, a former consultant involved in several U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) projects, founded FreeNomads in 2012 after seeing first-hand the challenges small firms face trying to connect with clients in other countries.
With FreeNomads, Rodriguez says, small tour operators don’t need to rely on social media sites, like Facebook, where they are lost in a sea of trivial information; rather, they can connect with travel professionals from all over the world in an industry-specific environment and without breaking the bank attending expensive international trade shows.
“While social media sites offer huge networking tools, they are very distracting and inefficient. We’ve focused on the information that matters most to our members, maintaining an all-business platform tourism professionals can use to connect with one another,” Rodriguez adds.
How FreeNomads Works
Tourism professionals – inbound and outbound tour operators, travel agents, hotels, tour boat operators, restaurants, tour guides and land transportation providers – create a free, easy to set up profile at FreeNomads.com by providing their business information. Members are then automatically matched using unique software based on information from their profiles, such as destinations, activities, demographics and prices, and they can then connect with potential clients and suppliers within the FreeNomads network.
Further, members gain access to several free organizational tools that help them run their businesses more efficiently.
FreeNomads member Paul Cooper, operator of a small business offering nature tours in Windhoek, Namibia, says he likes how FreeNomads brings together global tourism players and facilitates business among them.
“FreeNomads exposes my company to outbound tour operators without having to travel to expensive tradeshows in the US or Europe,” says Cooper. “The online community gives me a powerful marketing opportunity in a distraction-free, professional environment.”
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