the interviews
–The Series–
ARCHITECTS OF DESIRE - A BajaTraveler® Exclusive Series
Latin America is having its moment — and behind that moment stand six remarkable individuals who are rewriting what travel on this continent means. Architects of Desire is BajaTraveler®’s most ambitious editorial series to date: six in-depth interviews with the tourism leaders shaping the future of Panama, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, and Mexico. They arrive from marketing, diplomacy, institutional strategy, engineering, public service, and entrepreneurship. Some were appointed by presidents. Some climbed institutional ladders for fifteen years without ever looking back. One won at Cannes Lions on the first attempt. Another turned an invisible state that nobody talked about into a destination the world wanted to discover — then was handed an entire country. And one has spent a career building her country’s tourism identity from the inside out, position by position, until the strategy and the strategist became inseparable. Together, they represent the full spectrum of leadership that is transforming Latin America from a region of potential into the world’s most compelling travel destination.
This is not a series about beaches and brochures. It is a series about vision, conviction, and the quiet, relentless work of building desire
— one country at a time.
Josefina Rodríguez Zamora
JOSEFINA RODRÍGUEZ ZAMORA — Mexico
She made Tlaxcala — Mexico’s smallest, most overlooked state — a destination people actually wanted to visit. Then President Sheinbaum handed her the sixth most visited country on earth. She is 36 years old, a former restaurateur, and arguably the most creative tourism mind in Latin America right now.
María del Sol Velásquez García
MARÍA DEL SOL VELÁSQUEZ GARCÍA — Peru
She never needed an appointment from above. She built her authority from within — spending 15 years climbing every role PromPerú offers until the institution and the strategist became one. The woman who architected Peru’s tourism identity is now the one delivering it to the world.
Gloria de León Zubieta
GLORIA DE LEÓN — Panama
She inherited unpaid accounts, a stalled loan, and a country the world underestimated. Eighteen months later, Panama crossed three million visitors and $6.5 billion in tourism revenue. The brand builder who turned a house in disarray into a destination on the rise.
Pablo Menoni
PABLO MENONI — Uruguay.
An electrical engineer who built fiber optic networks and transport systems before anyone called him Minister. Now he is building something more elusive — desire for a small, extraordinary country between two giants that the world has barely begun to discover.
Carmen Cecilia Caballero
CARMEN CECILIA CABALLERO — Colombia.
A dentist from Santa Marta. A diplomat in Seville. A Gold Lion winner at Cannes. Carmen Caballero has rebuilt Colombia’s image to the world with creativity, conviction, and campaigns that moved millions. This is how you make a country irresistible.
Bruno Giovanni Reis
BRUNO GIOVANNI REIS — Brazil
He walked into Embratur in 2004 as an intern with a tourism degree and a dream. Twenty-two years later he runs the institution. No political drama. No film inspiration. Just two decades of quiet belief that Brazil deserved the world’s full attention. Now it has it.