Lake Titicaca, Puno — Peru

Case Study · Destination Development

JayWay Travel:
Opening Latin America

Destination Development  ·  Market Entry  ·  Brand Representation

Background

A boutique tour operator.
A blank map.

JayWay Travel is an American boutique tour operator known for deeply personalized, custom itineraries. Founded in 2006 and serving the US market, the company built its reputation on quality, attention to detail, and genuine local knowledge — exclusively across Europe.

When the time came to expand into Latin America, they needed someone who could represent the brand on the ground and build the foundation of an entirely new market — not from a desk, but in the field.

Kayaking through reeds at Lake Titicaca at sunrise Inca doorway at Sacsayhuamán, Cusco

The Brief

Open a market that
didn't exist yet.

Expand JayWay Travel into Latin America — a region the company had never operated in before. Start with Peru: evaluate and onboard suppliers, establish quality standards, build the product, and prove the model worked.

9
Regions of Peru
6
Weeks on the ground
25+
Trips sold in month one
Luxury infinity pool overlooking the Amazon river — Puerto Maldonado
Inkaterra Reserva Amazónica · Puerto Maldonado

The Approach

Six weeks.
Nine regions.
Every detail tested.

I spent 6 weeks across 9 regions of Peru representing JayWay's brand directly — meeting suppliers, negotiating partnerships, and experiencing the destination exactly as a JayWay client would.

That meant staying at and inspecting hotels, testing every transport option between destinations — trains, planes, buses, boats, taxis — eating at restaurants, visiting markets, attending local shows, and assessing every detail a traveler might encounter. I also produced photography across destinations, hotels, food, and local culture for the website and social media.

Private villa with plunge pool — Puerto Maldonado Causa limeña — Lima Boutique hotel pool — Arequipa

Not everything made the cut. A significant part of the work was filtering — identifying which contacts had genuine potential, which ones met JayWay's standards, and which ones didn't. Building the right product meant having the confidence to say no as much as yes.

Rainbow Mountain — Vinicunca, Cusco Testing local experiences — alpaca farm

Back at the desk, 9 months of work followed: organizing everything collected on the ground, onboarding approved suppliers, designing custom itineraries from 7 to 21 days, and building a practical travel guide covering everything a traveler needs to know — from health and safety to local customs, what to eat, what to avoid, and how to navigate the country with confidence.

Machu Picchu in the clouds
Machu Picchu · Cusco Region

The Result

A new market.
A proven model.

Peru launched as JayWay's first Latin American destination — opening an entirely new market for a company that had, until then, operated exclusively in Europe. Within the first month, the destination had already sold 25+ itineraries — a strong first signal for a market the company had never operated in before.

The model worked well enough that JayWay's founder chose to replicate it personally, taking the same approach into Costa Rica — the region's second destination, which I began developing in parallel before handing it over. He had built all of JayWay's European destinations himself; the fact that he adopted this framework for Latin America was the clearest signal that the work was done right.

The founder had built every European destination himself. For Latin America, he adopted this framework — and then took it to Costa Rica personally. That's the review I'm most proud of.

On the Amazon river with local team — Puerto Maldonado Traditional festival dancers — Puno

Reflection

Destination development
is brand work.

Good destination development is the same instinct as good brand work: understanding what you're promising, and making sure every detail of the experience delivers on it. Peru was a test of that in the most literal sense — six weeks on the ground, thinking about every single thing a traveler might need, and making sure JayWay could stand behind it completely.

Working on something similar?

If you're building a new market, launching a destination, or need senior brand and marketing thinking — let's talk.

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