Zebra Fisgona: Why do what we do?

We believe that tourism should help improve the quality of life in the place that is visited. Promoting its economic development and fostering a cultural exchange oriented towards mutual understanding. An exchange that generates real connections, that refutes negative imaginaries and shows that there are more things that unite us than those that separate us. With that in mind, we created Zebra Fisgona Tours to take actions to build and strengthen responsible and inclusive tourism in Bogota and Cundinamarca (initially).

As Tourism increased in our country, few Colombians were making a profit out of it, as travelers were led to the same places and the same activities. As newbies in this industry but veteran travelers, we realized there is a major opportunity to help more local businesses benefit from an industry that is increasing year after year. Hence, Zebra Fisgona Tours was born.

In Zebra Fisgona Tours we accepted the challenge to create experiences that connected local businesses or people who have stories to tell or things to share with travelers. As a result, travelers enjoy authentic and unique experiences while contributing to local development. When booking a tour with us 100% of your money stays in Colombia with Colombian People.

We currently have +15 experiences in Bogotá and surroundings. In each of them, we work with different entrepreneurs like; coffee growers, community leaders, restaurant owners amongst others.

In Zebra Fisgona Tours we are committed to achieve the objectives at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

All direct employees are women and most of the entrepreneurships we work with are either owned or led by women.

We work with suppliers that pay fair wages and create a safe environment for women to work at. We value the time and knowledge of all of our suppliers, therefore we always pay usual price (fair one).

#StoryTime

We are a women LGBTQ+ owned enterprise

Two dreamers meet

We, Aleja and Juani, co-founders of Zebra Fisgona Tours met at the university while studying advertising, our love for Colombia, traveling and storytelling naturally brought us together. We became friends, coworkers and finally partners in life and business.

A major realization

Tourism in Colombia starts to increase and people we met in different travel experiences around the world now want to come and visit us. After years of hosting friends from all over the world, we realized that tourism was our true passion and wanted to make a life out of sharing all our love for Bogota and Colombia.

Taking Action

We took the leap and invested everything we had in creating Zebra Fisgona Tours.

As experienced travelers we realized the industry was lacking that something…. that soul, deep connections and warm experiences. With that in mind we launched our first product as a free walking tour to prove our idea and concept. Turns out, people loved it!

Laying the foundations

With all our experience and the information gathered during the free tours we noticed there was an opportunity to help more entrepreneurs and local businesses to benefit from the industry since most travelers were led to the same places. Having that in mind and with the desire to do something meaningful we switch to private and personalized tours.

To achieve it, we joined with other locals and small entrepreneurs, allowing them to get an additional income through tourism and us to create unique experiences. We went from having only one tour to a portfolio with 15+ tours in Bogota and surroundings!

Conquering the first peak

All the hard work, the creation of new products with our allies and everything we did to be better, paid off. We started to grow in the international market, gradually scaling up to the top positions of international platforms like TripAdvisor! Over time, we ventured into the corporate market, specially with Universities seeking to share Bogota and its surroundings with their international students or special guests.

The unexpected

With the outbreak of Covid 19 everything stopped and the pandemic created one of the largest crises in the tourism industry. We took time to reflect and change in order to continue doing what we loved the most: Sharing the best of Bogota and Colombia! We worked very hard on three areas

Translate the best of our face-to-face tours into new digital experiences.
Understanding small actions have a huge impact, thus we strive to minimize as much as possible the use of plastic in all of our tours and experiences.
Get ready and be better, smarter and more humane for when tourism restarted.

The turning point

As tourism recovered in the world, Colombia didn’t stay behind, travelers started to come back and tours picked up. We opened our first semi-private tour on airbnb: Candelaria unveiled, Hotspots and hidden gems, and it had an amazing response from travelers, it’s now becoming our best seller!

Finally, we had a major opportunity that allowed us to invest in a new website and strengthen our marketing strategies in order to reach out to more travelers and increase our impact. This is just the beginning of a new chapter.

To be continued…