Almost total, complete invisibility, that’s my personal nightmare right now.

My wife and I run an award-winning homestay near Peru’s magnificent Machu Picchu. Tripadvisor has credited us (both in 2013 and 2014 as a top B&B in Peru), Lonely Planet featured us prominently in their new guide book which came out in April 2013 and we've got rave reviews from our guests on sites such as airbnb.com. So…. why are we facing having to close down our business?

I already know why, I just don’t like the answer.

You see, despite our success with our guests, not enough people know we exist. We live and work a few hours walk from Machu Picchu in a tiny hamlet called Quellomayo (which even the national tax office couldn't find when we registered with them some years ago …. or the local police force). Until I physically mapped us with google mapmaker we didn't even show up on the globe. Google’s imagery for our region is over 6 years old, it doesn't show the new road that has been built to bring tourists to the ruins, and despite trying, I can’t seem to make anyone care about updating things. I guess that’s the issue, we really are the only tiny business of our kind for miles and miles. Features like ‘street view’ or ‘places’ and other amazing Google services are pointless where we are. We have 3 neighbours and are the only people who have a website and more than 3 light bulbs in their home. Why would anyone care about updating this region. We’re about 15km away from one of South America’s biggest tourist attractions yet we might as well be adrift on a tiny raft in the pacific selling hotdogs.

SEO and internet marketing are generally the best way to attract people to our homestay/hostal but we lie just outside the scope of the internet’s radar for our industry. Sites like booking.com can’t find us or map us (some sites point blank state we’re not able to register) and just getting a foot in the door is a huge problem. Oh… another thing…. we don’t have internet or phone service where we live. You’re starting to see why we’re having problems aren't you? It’s not right for us to be listed as ‘in aguas calientes’ because people would book thinking we’re right there and would, rightly, be angry when they turned up and realised we were miles away. Our isolation and tranquility is our best selling point (ironically) and people do profit from being able to forget their phones and take in the surroundings and meet a local family. I just wish a few more people knew what I know.

Right now we’re working on a new website that should help us reach more people, we’ve asked our former guests to mention us in their blogs if they feel comfortable doing so and we’re giving ourselves 8 months to increase our reservations to a reasonable level before calling it a day.

We’ve invested over five years and all of our energy and savings into our organic coffee farm and homestay and right now we've reached a crucial moment. Income doesn't cover expenditure. Bugger. We know we’re good at what we do, our guests like the place despite the occasional power cut or landslide we’ve cheerfully managed to make people feel welcome and even through cold showers and outdoor toilets we’ve not had any complaints so far (I’m happy to announce we now have hot showers and an indoor toilet). It’s a tiny miracle really that makes us very happy so we’re so frustrated knowing that most people researching trips to Peru never even hear about us.

In a world where being connected is so important we’re trying to sell the opposite. We need technology to help us have a voice, but we’re not experts and we realise now that being good at what we do isn’t enough. Someone needs to find us to book with us. I don’t blame Google. I registered for Google+ to get a page set up for our business, went through the various stages and then when it came to verify our business the only option was ‘postcard verification’. There’s no postal service where we live. We’re not a good fit for mainstream internet marketing, but that’s who we are. If we can squeeze a little bit of press, backlinks and traffic to our website over the coming months we might make it. I’m not 100% sure we’ll survive, but I’m proud of what we’ve achieved despite this sad fact.

So, a tiny little fish in the big sea of tourism, in the shadow of one of the world’s most famous sites…. here’s to a successful 2014.