Ecuador : Fostering Environmentally Sustainable Tourism and Small Business Innovation and Growth in the Galapagos
Well-managed tourism can be an important contributor to sustainable development, providing incentives to protect the environment and maintain biodiversity, while fostering small business development. A recently completed subcomponent of Ecuador...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/06/2641157/ecuador-fostering-environmentally-sustainable-tourism-small-business-innovation-growth-galapagos http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10382 |
| Summary: | Well-managed tourism can be an important
contributor to sustainable development, providing incentives
to protect the environment and maintain biodiversity, while
fostering small business development. A recently completed
subcomponent of Ecuador's International Trade and
Integration Project, supported by a Bank Loan, demonstrates
this win-win situation. This note analyzes tourism, in
particular the pressures it creates on the environment in
the Galapagos islands, given its stance as the fourth
largest industry in Ecuador. Voluntary environmental quality
standards certification for tour vessels were addressed by
specialists, who developed a strategy, focused on the
tourists, and the 60 currently active tour boats. Standards
were established to minimize environmental impacts by
applying conservation practices to boats, and requiring
sensitizing clients to the need for environmental behavior.
To this end, stakeholders, including government agencies,
conservationists, and local communities participated in
developing the "SmartVoyager" standards, a
development effort beyond conservation. The International
Galapagos Tour Operators Association, made significant
inputs to the standards, and pledged to support the
certification program. This outreach effort enabled the
small boat operators to learn what the standards required;
how to comply with the requirements; and, most importantly,
why the requirements were included in the standards. After
this training and motivation, a number of boat operators
began to implement practices specified in the standards.
Some lessons address the need to bring small businesses into
this initiative early on, to gain strong acceptance and
support; that beneficiaries share in the costs, including
tourists, tour operators, and the national park; and, that
the seemingly commercially advantageous certification,
should allow enterprises to become self-supporting once its
benefits are demonstrated. |
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