A former Herefordshire businessman’s death in South America has prompted tributes from friends and business associates in the county and from those he strove to help in the Peruvian city of Iquitos where he had lived for 20 years.

Mike Collis, who co-ran Kington Financial Services, helped organise the first Hereford Raft Race before going on to set up the longest raft race in the world and the first golf course in the Amazon rainforest.

The news of his sudden death brought shock to former business associates and friends in Kington. It is believed he had developed peritonitis which was complicated by a bacterial infection and he died in hospital in Iquitos.

His efforts to develop the Amazon raft race, a means of developing tourism and raising funds to help poorer families, earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records, and he went on to set up a quad biking course and a free newspaper, the Iquitos Times. In the city where he settled in 1998, there has been an outpouring of grief from the many he helped. One local official described his “incomparable personality, sense of organisation, generosity and sincere friendship”.

He was to become good friends with the British Consulate, Phil Duffy, who lived in the Casa de Fierro or Iron House – built by Gustave Eiffel who designed the famous tower in Paris – and he ran Mad Mick’s Trading Post and Bunk House nextdoor.

Cedric Gilleman has praised Mike’s “incomparable personality, sense of organisation, generosity and sincere friendship with all the people who approached him”. He writes: “It is with great sadness that we learned the untimely death of Mike, founder of the great raft race on the Amazon river.” With his encouragement, M. Gilleman founded a charitable group, Asbl Aidons Sarai. “The idea of the Asbl came in 2009 when Mike convinced me to help children in difficulty in Iquitos,” he explains.

In a recorded interview, Mike explained his love for his adopted home. “I discovered it in 1989 when I came here for the fishing and I kept coming back and in 1998 I moved here and have been here ever since.”

He went on: “I love it, I love the people, it’s very tranquil and very safe, there’s no violence here.”

His eldest daughter, Emma Day, a travel designer living in Spain said her father had a “big, good heart”. She added: “In Iquitos he helped so many people and I’ve had messages from people in Kington saying how he’d helped them too.”