Martín Vargas
"We have been working on building a country narrative that connects with the pride, identity, and potential of Bolivia."
Una Gran Nación was born in the midst of a pandemic to reactivate tourism. Six years later, what problem of Bolivia is it still trying to solve?
At first, we started by focusing on a very concrete problem: Bolivia was not promoting itself enough.
But, over time, we understood that the challenge was much deeper.
After traveling through practically the entire country, talking with communities, organizations, business owners, artists, creators, and truly extraordinary people, there was something we could feel very closely. Actually, it is something that probably many Bolivians already know, but experiencing it on the ground completely changes the perspective.
Bolivia has enormous difficulties in building a shared vision of who it is, what it represents, and where it wants to go.
We have one of the most extraordinary natural, cultural, historical, and gastronomic heritages in the world. However, most Bolivians still know very little about our own country. Many times we do not know our regions, we do not understand the dimension of our diversity, and we are not fully aware of the value that Bolivia has.
And it is very difficult to value what we do not know.
That is why I believe that identity is one of the most underestimated development strategies that exist. I am not just talking about pride or belonging. I am talking about a tool capable of strengthening trust, cooperation, consumption of local products, protection of heritage, and the ability to build shared goals.
Of course, behind many of our challenges there are structural factors such as education, institutions, or the economy. But there is a pattern that runs through practically all of them: the lack of knowledge of who we are and the absence of a collective narrative.
A collective narrative does not mean we all think the same. It means that, within all our diversity, we can recognize a common history, build shared purposes, and understand that we advance much more when we stop seeing ourselves as isolated parts.
I think that is one of the great challenges of social cohesion in Bolivia. It is hard for us to trust, build agreements, and recognize that our differences can become a strength, rather than a reason to divide us.
That is why I consider tourism so important. Carlos Hugo Molina usually says that tourism is a tool for social cohesion because it forces us to know our territory, meet the other, value our differences, and discover everything we share. I think that perspective summarizes very well what we have learned during these years.
Today we understand that Una Gran Nación is no longer trying to solve only a problem of tourism promotion. It tries to contribute, from communication, to a much larger challenge: to help Bolivia know itself better, value itself more, and build a collective narrative capable of uniting us around shared goals.
A campaign can excite and go viral. What must happen for that emotion to turn into tourism, employment, and local development?
I think we often overestimate the power of a campaign and underestimate the value of a strategy.
A campaign, by itself, does not change a country. What it does is open a door. What is really important is everything that happens afterward.
Like any communication strategy, it all starts with clearly understanding what goal we want to achieve. What perception do we want to change? What behavior do we want to generate? What action do we expect to happen after someone sees that content?
From there, a process is built.
The first step is usually to generate awareness: getting people to discover a destination, remember it, and start considering it. Then we look to awaken interest, motivate the search for information, generate trust, and, finally, convert that intention into a travel decision.
But the real challenge begins when that person arrives at the destination.
There, we need an experience capable of sustaining the promise made by the communication. Infrastructure, connectivity, prepared operators, organized communities, gastronomy, lodging, activities, and an offer that really surprises.
And it does not end when the tourist returns home either.
Ideally, that experience translates into recommendations, content generated by the travelers themselves, and a reputation that continues to grow organically.
If you look at the entire process, a campaign is just the beginning of a much wider funnel. Communication awakens interest, but behind it, there has to be a value chain that allows transforming that attention into visitors, those visitors into local consumption, and that consumption into employment, entrepreneurship, and economic development.
That is why I always say that communication is not the final goal.
It is the starting point of a much larger strategy.
And when that strategy is well built, it stops generating only views or interactions. It starts generating opportunities for the people who live in those territories.
"Que Se Sepa" surpassed 10.5 million views. Beyond the digital reach, what really changed after the campaign?
I think the biggest mistake is to measure a campaign solely by its numbers.
Yes, we reached more than 10.5 million views in less than a week. Yes, we had close to half a million interactions and around 30,000 positive comments from Bolivians speaking with pride of their country.
But that was never the real goal.
"Que Se Sepa" was born at a very particular moment. We were about to welcome the Bicentennial in the midst of one of the moments of greatest uncertainty that Bolivia has experienced in recent years. There was a collective feeling of tiredness, division, and, above all, loss of confidence.
We asked ourselves a very simple question:
With what conversation do we want to welcome the 200 years of Bolivia?
And we understood that, before speaking to the world, we had to speak to each other again.
Because it is very difficult for someone to value a country whose own citizens no longer speak well of it.
Our goal was never to make a viral campaign. It was to try to rewrite, even if only for a moment, the conversation we Bolivians were having about ourselves.
And I think that was the most valuable thing.
During those days, we saw thousands of people sharing stories of pride, recommending places, talking about culture, gastronomy, nature, and Bolivian talent. Not because someone asked them to, but because they felt they also wanted to be part of that conversation.
But, in addition, "Que Se Sepa" ended up becoming something we did not expect: the starting point of a much more ambitious roadmap.
From that campaign, we began to promote new initiatives linked to the tourism, cultural, and gastronomic promotion of the country.
One of them was the Ruta Carnaval. Thanks to Paceña, which allowed us to be part of a much larger campaign, we were able to develop a strategy that ended up projecting the Bolivian Carnaval to more than 26 million people.
And that same vision continues today in projects like the Salar Film Festival, where we seek to connect tourism, culture, audiovisual industry, and economic development around the same strategy.
That is why, when people ask me what changed after "Que Se Sepa", my answer is very simple.
It didn't just change a conversation.
It changed our own dimension of the project.
We confirmed that it was possible to mobilize thousands of people around a positive cause and, above all, we understood that building a collective narrative cannot depend on a single campaign.
It has to become a permanent work.
Because campaigns end.
Narratives remain.
How do you prevent Bolivian identity from being reduced to pretty landscapes, folklore, and phrases designed for social media?
That is probably one of the biggest challenges we have.
Because showing spectacular landscapes or making emotional content is relatively easy. What is really difficult is to make that content build something.
We understand communication as a strategic tool, not as an end in itself. Therefore, before producing any campaign, we always ask ourselves a question: what do we want to build in the long term?
Every action has to answer to a purpose.
If we talk about the Carnaval, we do not just want millions of people to see a nice video. We seek to strengthen its international positioning, generate greater appreciation within the country itself, attract visitors who understand its cultural importance, and, at the same time, generate opportunities for those who live from that expression.
If we talk about gastronomy, we do not just want someone to say "how delicious that looks." We want that person to understand that behind each dish there is a story, a productive chain, farmers, cooks, traditions, and an identity that deserves to be known and valued.
If we talk about nature, we do not want Bolivia to become a catalog of landscapes either. We want whoever sees that content to understand why that place is important, who lives there, what culture surrounds it, and why protecting it also means protecting part of our identity.
I think that is the difference between making content and building narrative.
Content seeks to capture attention.
Narrative seeks to change perceptions.
And when a narrative is well built, it stops being a social media post to become a tool that strengthens identity, drives tourism, promotes culture, and generates development.
In the end, we do not want people to simply admire Bolivia.
We want them to understand it.
Because when we really understand something, we begin to value it. And when we value it, we also begin to take care of it and build upon it.
Una Gran Nación seeks to articulate the public and private sectors. What should the State assume and what should the business sector stop expecting?
Our focus has always been very oriented towards the private sector, because we believe that companies can build their brand while helping to build the country. They are not two different goals; on the contrary, they enhance each other.
When a company promotes culture, tourism, cinema, gastronomy, or the identity of a country, it is not only generating social impact. It is also strengthening the context where it develops its own business.
That is why we believe that major brands can become fundamental actors of development.
And what do you expect from the State?
Mainly coordination. That it facilitates, articulates, generates institutional support when necessary, and helps to open doors where a public presence is important.
But, above all, we expect continuity. Projects that build a country should not start and end with each administration. They need a long-term vision.
At the same time, the private sector also has to assume responsibility.
Stop thinking only in the short term and understand that investing in identity, culture, or tourism is not just a contribution to the country; it is also an investment in the environment where that company will grow over the coming years.
In the end, it is not about discussing who does more. It is about understanding what each one can contribute. Because true development appears when we stop working in parallel and start building around the same purpose.
And I believe that capacity for cooperation is probably one of the most valuable assets any society can have.
UGN is now betting on cinema as an international showcase. How can we make a production in the Salar de Uyuni generate opportunities after the cameras are turned off?
I think cinema has a potential that many times we still do not fully grasp. We are talking about an industry capable of connecting tourism, culture, education, services, investment, and economic development.
That was precisely one of the ideas behind the Salar Film Festival.
The festival was born because we saw the opportunity to connect two extraordinarily powerful value chains: the audiovisual industry and tourism. But, in addition, it was born as a deeply collaborative project.
From day one, we understood that an initiative like this could only be built by combining capacities. It has been a joint effort between Rodrigo Bellott, from his enormous trajectory and contribution to Bolivian cinema; Hidalgo Tours, contributing all their experience from tourism; Four Group, from the building of experiences and articulation with the private sector; and Una Gran Nación, driving the strategic vision of connecting identity, tourism, and development.
Each one contributes from a different place, but we all share the same vision.
Bolivia has some of the most extraordinary natural settings on the planet. But it also has a film industry that for decades has worked with enormous effort, often facing very large limitations. We believed it was also time to recognize that path, honor those who have been building Bolivian cinema for so many years, and generate new opportunities for that industry to keep growing.
That is why the festival seeks to become much more than an event.
It wants to be a meeting point where filmmakers, producers, companies, universities, investors, and territories converge to start building a much more solid ecosystem around the audiovisual industry.
But, for us, the most important part begins when the festival ends. We want each production to leave installed capacities. To train talent. To strengthen local suppliers. To generate new opportunities for technicians, actors, production companies, and entrepreneurs. To encourage new productions. To boost film tourism.
And to make Bolivia stop being only a place where stories are filmed to also become a country that develops an industry around them. Because when a production is well-articulated, the impact completely transcends the screen. It can generate employment, attract investment, strengthen the identity of a territory, and project the image of the country for many years.
That is the legacy we seek to build. Not just a festival. But a platform that helps to make a increasingly stronger audiovisual industry visible and demonstrates that cinema can also become a tool for development for Bolivia.
You are an economist, but you built a career around stories. What did you understand about Bolivia that numbers alone could not show?
Economics gave me something I use every day: analytical judgment. It taught me to ask questions, to understand relationships between different factors, and, above all, not to settle for superficial explanations.
I had an extraordinary department head who deeply marked my training. During my thesis, he encouraged me to research social capital, a topic that ended up changing my way of understanding development.
Until that moment, I thought of development mainly from economic variables. But by studying social capital, I understood that factors like trust, cooperation, identity, or the ability to build shared goals could also explain why some countries manage to develop more than others.
In fact, during my research, I found something that marked me deeply: around 35% of the differences in extreme poverty among the analyzed countries were related to their level of social trust. That completely changed my way of understanding development.
There I understood that concepts that often seem abstract —like identity, belonging, or collective narrative— have very concrete effects on the economy.
And that idea stays with me to this day. That is why I believe that identity is not just a cultural issue. It is a development tool.
A society that knows itself better, that trusts more, that cooperates, and that shares a common purpose, has much more capacity to build solid institutions, attract investment, strengthen its tourism, protect its heritage, and generate opportunities.
But economics also left me with another lesson that I consider just as important. It taught me not to fall in love with ideas. It taught me to always ask why and what for.
Every project, every strategy, and every campaign we develop has to have a hypothesis, clear objectives, and a logic that explains how an action should produce a result. I try to remove as much subjectivity as possible and support decisions on research, evidence, and analysis.
Stories came later. Because I understood that data can explain a problem, but it rarely mobilizes a society.
Stories do. Numbers help us understand reality. Stories help us change it.
And I believe the real challenge lies in getting both to work together: having the analysis tell us what we should do and having the stories inspire people to do it.
INSIGHTS
A book or movie that marked you?: “There is a book that marked me a lot: The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin.”
A person you deeply admire?: I think I have been extremely fortunate. I am surrounded by people I deeply admire.
A phrase or principle that guides your life?: "One cannot fight for what one does not love, nor love what one does not know."
Your most precious possession?: Time. Because it is the only truly irreplaceable resource.
A fear that you have learned to transform or that has left you a lesson?: For a long time, I was afraid of making mistakes. But then I understood that no important project is born completely resolved. It is built by walking.
A favorite flavor or gastronomic experience?: My favorite dish is probably sopa de maní. But, more than a dish, what I really enjoy is the experience.
