COOATEMCA COOPERATIVA DE TRANSPORTE Y TURISMO EN MOTOCARROS EN FLORENCIA CAQUETA

Piedad Constanza Claros Osorio

Sandra Liliana Ocampo Ortiz

Jorge Antonio Soriano Rojas

AMAZONIA UNIVERSITYENGLISH PROGRAM

ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SEMINARFLORENCIA-CAQUETA

2013

COOATEMCA COOPERATIVA DE TRANSPORTE Y TURISMO EN MOTOCARROS EN FLORENCIA CAQUETA

WELCOME

Welcome to Cooperativa Cooatemca, it is a regional agency of transportation and tourism using motorcars to promote tourisms in Florencia-Caquetá. It is a regional agency that offers different touristic tours in the city using motorcar as a means of allowing the tourists sightseeing the most important and touristic places in and nearby the city.

MISSION

Cooperativa Cooatemca is a tourist agency that encourages tourism in Florencia, revealing rustic accommodation in wonderful locations, sensitizing the population about the importance of good rest, taking advantage of the beautiful scenery, crafts, folklore, fruits and flavors of our land. It also offers transportation of goods services, simultaneous translation from English and French into Spanish. And finally, tour guides in order to increase tourism in the golden Gate Colombian Amazonia.

VISION

By the year 2018, Cooperativa Cooatemca will be one of the most prestigious tourist agencies in Caquetá leading tourism, innovation, technology and continuous improvement to offer tourists the best tourism options.

INTRODUCTION

Motorcars workers realized that this service can also be used in different ways in order to provide people with more services. We made an investigation and we found that Florencia lacks of touristic motorized service for tourists. For instance, We decided to do something about it and decided to create a new organization focused in providing touristic rides to tourists using motorcars. This new project has as main objective, to promote this territory as a cultural and touristic place among tourists from all over the country. At the beginning, this cooperative was designed for transporting merchandise, goods or light charge from a place to another using the motorcars, since we knew motorcars could be used for touristic guidance we decided to start this project.

This new business company is called COOATEMCA. COATEMCA has different motorcars designed for transporting people, merchandise and goods. This is a very reliable business since the costs of maintenance are very cheap. Therefore, cargo motorcycles can reach places, which are very difficult to reach due to the roads bad condition and size. Motorcars can even reach places where there are not formal or just do not exists roads. Those factors make this business very rentable and appealing for the customers. We planned this in order to increase this business in a period of ten to fifteen years. Drivers and managers have worked very hard to make this project possible since 2008 when the original idea emerged from one of the drivers who realized this need in Florencia.

Currently, The Cooperativa de Acarreos y Turismo en Motocarros en Florencia COOATEMCA have been receiving multiple training for this job from Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje SENA. The training received is in order to improve the service given to the tourists and Florencians and to give a new face of Florencia to the rest of the country. We have established everything legal in order to have a proper operation as an authentic company

and cooperative. The current Major of the city has been a little kind to us since she has not pursued us legally and has permitted us to operate in the city without any kind of restriction. At this point, we need the authorization from the City Hall in order to send the legal documentation of this project to the Super Intendencia de Economía Solidaria, which is the one who regulates all the cooperatives in Colombia.

OBJECTIVES

To promote, encourage, develop and safeguard the interest of tourists, transport operator and goods transportation using cargo motorcycles in Florencia Caquetá.

To promote, encourage, develop and help in bringing about the cooperation between people, firms, association, or companies and authorities concerned with tourists transport and goods so that, they might adopt a common policy and collectively take such steps as may be deemed necessary and expedient further and safeguard the interest of this particular cooperativa.

To take up, consider and discuss question connected with or affecting above mentioned areas and to provide facilities for encouragement, cooperation mutual interest and problems connected therewith an for such propose to organize and promote exhibitions, demonstrations and other useful functions.

To present officially the views of its members on any questions affecting or likely to affect the transport operation to the government of Florencia, chamber of commerce, hotels and any other public or private body.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLACE

Caquetá is a place full of beautiful landscapes and places to visit. Some of those places are very hard to get and because of that, our service is the most appropriate for transportation to those places. Caquetá has 16 municipalities in which we would be offering our service of transportation for tourists and for transporting goods and merchandise. Currently, we transport customers and goods from Florencia to different towns, but we are studying the possibility of having small headquarters in each town in order to facilitate the transportation from those places to Florencia. The national decree allows the cargo motorcycles work as public transportation in towns with a population lower than 50.000 inhabitants, for that reason we cannot operate as public transportation in Florencia, but we are allowed to work as public transportation in most of the municipalities except Doncello and San Vicente.

INNOVATING SERVICES

Motorcar’s Cooatemca, ground Transportation cooperative dedicated to freight, began operations in 2008 in the city of Florence, with a permanent obsession for the service, was dabbling in all Florence shopping, schools and homes as well as expanding its coverage to all municipalities in the department of Caquetá. Subsequently, it is recorded in the Caquetá Chamber of Commerce in order to provide its services as tourist guides in the region to encourage students to employ a degree in English when hotels or foreign traders need a translator guide and motivate own and foreign people on environmental wealth we possess and encourage tourists to visit Caquetá again in the future. This project is also based on respecting the animal rights, the government has implemented a law which protects animals from being used as animal traction vehicles. Horses and donkeys will be less exploited from hard work since cargo motorcycles are taking place in the cargo business. This project also looks for taking care of defenseless animals.

Currently Cooatemca is clear in its vision and mission that is actively involved in the transportation business with some business units, which have allowed responsibility to be recognized as the cooperative with better safety and quality indices in the transport of passengers and cargo in Florencia, especially during festivities when they were immersed in the shows and advertising campaigns. More than 20 people working directly with the cooperative, which have been trained in cooperative to ensure high levels of safety, efficiency and quality in service delivery and in the personal lives of our partners and customers. We have cargo motorcycles common type, suitable for the topography of the land and dirt roads, comfortable chairs, and audio system.

For all these cargo motorcycles which contribute greatly to the development of towns and cities to be an excellent solution for public and private transportation of people and particular goods, creating job creation and efficient source of safe mobility drivers of the local economy. It is important to recognize the effort that all partners have done for improving the legal situation with the ministry of transportation. According to decree 4125 the cooperative doesn’t work in cities where population is higher than 50.000 inhabitants, so the cooperative can work in cities where the population is

lower than 50.000 inhabitants, wherever the possibilities are for working with cargo, this business opens doors for people who want to work as motorcar drivers and contribute in the local development.

RATE OF SERVICES

According to the studies we as cooperative have made, we took into account the distances between a place to another, the people needs and the economic situation in Caquetá in order to establish the cargo motorcycles rate of services for the community. We as native of this land know the needs and incapacities people possess in order to use the cargo service and tourism travel through Caquetá. Because of that, we have implemented a very suitable rate of service for our business. We look forward to be one of the leader tourism and cargo cooperatives in the region, and that includes prices, availability, and number of destinies, comfort and reliability. According to all we have mentioned before, the chart of prices has been established for a mutual benefit. This is our rate of services:

MERCHANDISE TRANSPORTATION

-Cargo transportation lower than 300 kg in the Microcentro area. $5.000

-Cargo transportation lower than 300 kg beyond the Microcentro area. $15.000

-March past service, covered per hour. $15.000

-Advertisement campaign, covered per hour. $15.000

TOURISM RATE OF SERVICE

Cooatemca agency of transportation in cargo motorcycles offers trips to many tourist attractions, from the point of view of nature, culture and science.

Florencia´s City: $ 20.000

Petroglifos el Encanto: $ 4.000

Hacha River: $ 4. 000

Real Campestre Natural Pool: $ 6.000

Cueva de los Guácharos: $ 12:000

Orteguaza River: $ 7.000

Paila River: $ 8.000

Hotel Campestre las Garzas: $ 4.000

Parador Turistico Villapaz: $ 9.000

Caraño Waterfall: $ 9.000

Ecoaventura el Caraño: $ 10.000

Novia Waterfall: $ 9.000

Ferry Marco polo: $ 7.000

Abispa Waterfall: $ 9.000

Villa Del Rosario: $ 9.000

Nueva Jerusalén Waterfall: $ 10.00

This service is very suitable to the people needs, but it has some disadvantages. When a motorcar breaks down is very difficult to find some of the parts in order to exchange the broken ones and install the new ones, there are no technicians able to fix cargo motorcycles since they are not very commercial in Florencia. Currently there are two stores, which provide some of the cargo motorcycles parts. Sometimes we have to bring the parts from other cities and all that wasted time cannot be recovered. Another disadvantage is the current law, which does not allow cargo motorcycles to work as a public service in towns with population higher than 50.000

inhabitants. Those are the only disadvantages this project has. We have mentioned before the great quantity of benefits and advantages we are trying to implement.

CONCLUSION

We, as entrepreneurs, expect to be a leader company in the region, capable of succeed with this business at the same time we employ people and bring development and more visits from tourists to this small, hidden and beautiful piece of land in a country, which is recognized in outer continents just for the intern conflict we have. We hope with this project to change the tourist’s mind and bring more external investment from foreign companies and bring more development to Caquetá. For instance, we would not only bring new technologies and development to Caquetá, but also the cultural knowledge from other countries. This is a utopian project we hopefully expect to accomplish since we have worked hard trying to become this real.