Will Mexico make a Classy Comeback?

Roughly translated as "no problem, leave it for tomorrow", vacationers and retirees love Mexico's mañana attitude. But to keep tourism dollars rolling in, President Felipe Calderon is not letting that relaxed attitude take hold - at least not at the planning and policy levels.

The country's position has fallen from the world's 7th to 10th place in global tourist arrivals in the last 15 years. Complications with the US-European recession and the drug cartels have contributed to this drop. President Calderon is adamant he can reverse this trend. Very soon.

Coastal EcoVentures combines field work and funding for conservation

There was a method to our madness when we decided to initially focus our business, Coastal EcoVentures, on coastal tourism in Mexico. As both environmental scientists and avid travelers (and surfers), we were concerned about the rapid development taking place along Mexico's coastline and the negative impacts it was having on the environment and local communities. One need to only look at Cancun to get a sense of the ills of over-development.

Assuming that development will continue in fragile coastal regions, the question was whether we could promote responsible development that potentially mitigates negative impacts. For example, those that restore wetlands rather than eliminate them; that promote waste reduction instead of increase pollution; that hire community members rather than displacing the locals; these are the kinds of projects that should be supported.

Fortunately, such projects exist. To learn more about this niche industry, we focused our initial research on Playa Viva, a resort in the early stages of development near Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Playa Viva is promoting an innovative approach to development that goes a step beyond sustainable and incorporates regenerative development goals. In other words, they are restoring distressed land, in this case a palm plantation, back to its native landscape. The plan is to create a low-impact resort and residential community that can finance restoration and conservation.

Last July we had the chance to visit Playa Viva. While we were there we met the onsite management team to see how well the project actually matched its proposed responsible development goals. We met with Playa Viva’s green architect Michel Lewis, to look over development plans and site renderings. He showed us casita test structures and restoration activities of one of the coastal lagoons. We also met with Odin Ruiz, Playa Viva’s permaculturalist. He is actively re-vegetating the palm plantation with native species, and is reintroducing ancestral Mayan terracing for sustainable agriculture. We also had the opportunity to participate in a sea turtle release at the community-run turtle sanctuary.

During our visit, we thought about how we would go about evaluating Playa Viva’s development plans and what environmental and social criteria could be measured, particularly at such an early stage in development. The project became the case study upon which we built our methodology for evaluating responsible tourism developments. The field trip and sunset surf sessions provided a nice break from our laptops and Excel, and reaffirmed our hunch that we were working in the right industry.

A recently released article, "Good Preachers: Students' eco-tourism firm to fund guilt-free travel", highlights some of the additional work Coastal EcoVentures and Playa Viva are doing to support investment in and travel to sustainable tourism developments.

Domestic tourism in Mexico

Our personal accounts of ecotourism are usually in the first person; that is, we talk about our own experiences of traveling to Mexico and other beautiful, far-flung tropical locales from another country. Not surprising to be coming from a group of Americans.

But international tourists are only part of the story. Just as the majority of tourists to be found at most attractions in the U.S. are, in fact, Americans, the tourism industries of Mexico and other Latin American countries also are dominated by domestic visitors.

In Mexico, 80 percent of total tourism expenditures (and 60 percent of the spending on lodging) come from Mexican residents, according to a 2001 OECD study. (In some places, of course, international visitors dominate.)

Why should we care? Well, in our minds ecotourism can only be sustainable if tourist activities maintain the integrity of the ecosystems where eco-resorts are found. And local residents are almost always the best stewards of that. Community-scale stewardship is the most critical, but all domestic visitors have a stake in stewarding the natural landscapes within their country's borders.

Since domestic tourists are, on average, probably less affluent than visitors from America and other (richer) countries, it's also important to have tourism options at all price points, not just the luxury experiences that often exclude the average middle-class tourist. On a related point, we should be sensitive to the potential for a lagging level of appreciation of environmental values among domestic tourists, stemming from simple things like education and even access to the internet.

Domestic tourism is in some ways a measure of the interest in and appreciation of a nation's environmental assets, and we're glad to see it's alive and well in Mexico. Strong domestic tourist flows will, we hope, provide the capital to maintain and restore ecologically important lands. We'll be watching for studies to confirm that domestic tourists are just as interested in eco-friendly travel as Americans are becoming.

Financing ecotourism #1: The role of government

This blog serves partly as a forum to talk about the next big ideas in ecotourism and sustainable development. But too often these well-intentioned policy innovations are never successfully implemented, and the intended conservation outcomes never happen.

And often it is financing that's the missing piece. Environmentally friendly projects, such as investments in energy efficiency, typically generate positive returns but are passed over in favor of even more lucrative projects. (Energy efficiency investments often take many years to pay for themselves.) The tight credit markets don't help, but this problem is not unique to recessionary periods.

So we'll start using this blog to discuss new financing mechanisms that increase access to capital and thereby expand the use of responsible development practices in ecotourism. And the first topic is the role of government-led financing.

Developing countries routinely receive funding from the world's richest economies - through the big development (e.g., massive lines of credit) and from the private sector - to support economic development and environmental protection. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), for example, sends money directly to national governments, which then have discretion over how the money is used. More and more, the World Bank and related institutions are giving these governments leeway over how they use the money and, more generally, how they set and enforce environmental regulations.

Many developing countries also enjoy a robust tourism sector, which often dominates local economies. And it's becoming increasingly evident that consumers want more responsible tourism experiences.

So there is money available from two sources (development banks and tourists) that demand environmental protection. And some investments in environmentally friendly development (like energy efficiency) often don't get made because scarce capital is employed in more readily available projects with shorter payback periods.

What if a national government administered a revolving loan fund to support tourism development that simultaneously meets national goals for economic development and environmental protection? Good projects would get the capital they need, while less environmentally friendly forms of development would be discouraged implicitly (though not outlawed entirely).

The mechanism would invest in projects that meet high standards of environmental performance, recognizing that such environmental performance often requires significant capital investment above and beyond that required for a viable development. The revolving fund could even specifically target investments that normally don't get funded, like investments with a payback period of seven years or more.

The method for evaluating the environmental performance of tourism developments must include a quantitative, outcome-oriented analysis of whether (and how) each stands up to a set of environmental standards, like in our EcoValuator scorecard.

A revolving fund would return capital to the national government, with a small return to pay for costs of administration and to ensure the financial sustainability of the program over time.

Cheap buses, fast Spanish, and ecotourism: Lessons from the Lakes District

I was finally on my own, traveling through the land of lagos y volcanes that Che experienced, after a conservation finance conference in nearby Valdivia. Chile is a wonderful place to visit, combining the beauty of South America with the charm of Europe. And it's cheap: a decent hostel bed is around $10, and a six-hour bus ride cost me $4. Photos from the adventure are here.

After a rest day in Puerto Varas and a climb of Volcan Osorno - a stunningly symmetrical cone overlooking a massive glaciated lake - I headed to the tourist center of the Lakes District: the town of Pucon.


I went there to visit El Cani, a forest reserve that's home to the endangered araucaria tree, which has a limited range that is pushed to its limits by the expanding development frontier. El Cani was saved from land conversion by a local ecotourism proprietor. Revenues from a nearby ecoresort were used to finance the purchase of the reserve, which has since become a tourist destination in its own right. The araucarias are still safely perched on an isolated ridge within El Cani, this tree's last remaining outpost in the region.

Pucon is overrun by touristm, but don't blame the tourists. Countless recreational activities populate the region, including an active but accessible volcano that's practically inside the city limits.

From an environmental perspective, such masses of tourists may be cause for concern. And there are undoubtedly impacts on water quality in Lago Llanquihue (though fortunately the lake is huge), and certainly local pollution from the frequent traffic jams and innumerable autobuses ferrying tourists to their daily outdoor excursions.

But clustering of tourist activities is a good thing in many contexts. Even mega-destinations, like Cancun in Mexico, could be good for conservation: although they leave a staggering imprint on local ecosystems, they provide millions of tourists with the tropical vacation experiences they demand without disturbing large tracts of intact wilderness elsewhere in the tropics. Imagine how those landscapes would hold up if all those people chose more remote destinations located closer to important tropical ecosystems.

So there are trade-offs. We think part of the solution is to promote limited tourism development that provides economic development opportunities that encourage stewardship of critical habitat for biodiversity while avoiding the environmental costs of intensive development practices. The answers won't come easily, but we're working on ways to assess these alternatives, both at the project level and at a regional scale. We see great promise in some forms of "limited development" ecotourism, and we hope to identify and promote the most responsible forms of development.

As for fast Spanish: I have a long way to go on my Spanish skills, but every visitor to Chile agrees: Chileans talk really, really, ridiculously fast.

Ecotourism vacations are short: Stay awake for them!

We traveled to Panama recently to see how communities are addressing the pressures brought on by increased tourism demand. One of the best things about ecotourism is the opportunity to witness (and support) non-tourism industries and livelihoods. And we discovered a thriving coffee industry that is alive and well in the mountains of western Panama.

An hour inland from the Pacific Coast, Boquete sits at around 1,500 meters above sea level and is surrounded by coffee plantations. There are plenty of Americans here - Boquete was featured by AARP a few years ago - but the coffee industry remains the dominant force in the local economy. A full day of walking through the surrounding hillsides opened our eyes to the vibrant and varied coffee-growing activities, all well-insulated from the growing stream of tourist traffic.

(By the way, nice to see that the local enterprises are capturing a majority of the coffee value chain: all the way from growing and harvesting the raw beans to processing, roasting and packaging.)

Although not a new concept, we think there is an under-utilized opportunity for growing tourism to be integrated with and even to benefit local coffee growers. Coffee-loving tourists, after all, love to see the plantations, a lesson the wine industry knows well.

And ecotourists, drawn to the beauty and "intactness" of the natural landscape, will no doubt demand a responsibly grown product, complete with polyculture and safeguards for biodiversity. Thus, coffee tourism can serve to protect biodiversity by ensuring responsible cultivation practices are used. In conjunction with coffee certification schemes - including fair trade, shade-grown, and the like - the coffee-drinking public will be educated about the impacts of their consumption decisions, thereby (we hope) reinforcing price premiums in the market.

In a place like Boquete, which borders a massive national park reaching across the nearby border with Costa Rica, coffee tourism could also expose visitors to the intact landscapes beyond the agricultural frontier.

Working in a fast-paced, nascent start-up, we can certainly appreciate the caffeinated pleasures of a good cup of coffee (at any hour of the day or night). To be sure, we'll be using this invaluable resource as do field research and other tasks this summer and beyond. As our work progresses, we'll be looking for opportunities to responsibly integrate important local industries with ecotourism. In the coming months, we'll be checking out coffee tourism taking place in Mexico, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Turtles and ecotourism

We watched, somewhat bemused, as National Geographic's Great Turtle Race came to a thrilling conclusion last week. The race map, along with the Olympic-caliber commentary, is entertaining.

The race, involving 11 leatherback turtles on their annual migration from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean, was a nice encore to the 2007 race from Costa Rica to the Galapagos, in which Stephen Colbert's namesake narrowly lost.

Turtles have come up a few times in our research on coastal ecotourism. After all, turtles, perhaps more than any other species, rely exclusively upon beach habitat for nesting. In southern Mexico last summer, we helped "launch" some newborn leatherback (the largest turtle species) and golfina turtles from a turtle nursery.

The nursery, called La Tortuga Feliz ("The Happy Turtle"), is notable because of the direct involvement of tourists and the local community in turtle stewardship. Also notable: about 100,000 turtles hatch at this site every year.

Sounds pretty touchy-feely, but in fact several turtle species are endangered and attract plenty of regulation from local governments - which often enact laws to protect the endangered turtles - along with conservation groups. Historically, turtle eggs have been a food source for local beach communities.

Ecotourism projects can do their part by establishing links between local environmental assets (like turtle nesting grounds) and increased tourism demand, an important industry in many coastal Mexican communities. Located within a new ecotourism resort, La Tortuga Feliz offers a chance for tourists to volunteer in the nursery, a valuable learning opportunity, not to mention an attractive selling point for the resort.

Hard to believe the newborn turtles will survive the currents, fishing nets and predators of the open ocean between Mexico and the Galapagos. But witnessing their lives on the edge made us appreciate the importance of protecting their beaches even more.

Tourism in a recession

Talk of the recession, frozen credit, and home foreclosures seems to dominate the airwaves these days. So it's natural to think that tourism, one of modern life's great indulgences, might be jettisoned quickly by consumers worried about the long-term health of the global economy, not to mention their own finances. After all, staycations can be enticing when money is tight.

Yet many economists and decision-makers, including tourism experts at the United Nations, herald tourism as an essential part of the economic recovery. Tourism is the world's largest industry in terms of jobs, especially for young people, women and other new entrants into the job market.

And many experts are arguing for increased support of tourism, an important source of international trade, in the various stimulus packages being developed around the world. Tourism even got some consideration at the recent G20 meetings in London.

One of the biggest headlines from G20 was the rich nations' decision to provide $1.1 trillion (via the IMF) in loans and financial guarantees. This credit is intended primarily for developing countries, citing the developing world as the key to the global recovery. Since tourism is a pillar of so many Latin American countries, tourism reasonably will figure into the economic recovery.

Tourism is also linked to climate change, so the best investments in tourism must effectively deal with the potential downsides of future development. For our team, that means smart siting, design and construction decisions in resort and infrastructure development, as well as a keen eye toward the negative impacts of land use change, which is especially important in tropical countries. Not to mention that the aesthetic beauty and other natural assets are what draw tourists in the first place.

Mexico is at a critical point in its green revolution

17 Feb 2009

Source: Forum for the Future

Viva la vida verde

Mexico is at a critical point on its path to sustainable development, says a new publication from leading UK sustainable development organisation Forum for the Future.

Launched in Mexico City today by Forum for the Future founder Jonathon Porritt, Viva la vida verde offers a snapshot of a country which is working hard to balance its emergence as a major economic power - possessing massive mineral and fossil fuel reserves - with its role as the custodian of 10-12% of the planet’s species and its huge potential for exploiting renewable energy sources.

As Mexico prepares to host World Environment Day in June, Viva la vida verde depicts a country with a newly dynamic economy but also producing 1.5% of global CO2 in 2008 - the most of any country in Latin America and facing the challenges of absolute poverty levels at 20%, water shortages, high rates of deforestation, the increasing frequency of hurricanes – linked to climate change, and continued desertification and air pollution.

These facts, combined with a 107 million population that is set to grow by 27% by 2050 create a huge responsibility for Mexico’s current leaders and businesses.

But recent improvements in environmental management and a commitment to sustainability issues by President Felipe Calderon’s administration show that progress is being made and that Mexico has every chance of harnessing its potential in a sustainable way.

“There are certainly promising signs that the Calderon administration is taking its environmental and social responsibilities seriously,” says Jonathon Porritt.

He goes on to highlight steps such as “...enshrining sustainability as a priority in the national development plan, setting out plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, expanding sustainable forestry, protecting biodiversity and boosting wind power.”

Viva la vida verde charts this progress towards sustainable development and includes examples of business and governmental leadership, which should inspire, not just Mexicans, but the international community:

• the Mexican tourism industry, one of the biggest in the world, is linking up traditional package holidays with local food projects and coral reef conservation;
• Mexico City has an ambitious Green Plan – with a goal of being self-sufficient for water by 2022, the introduction of waste to energy plants and a citywide recycling scheme;
• Mexico is to plant 250 million trees over the next decade;
• conservation efforts are being made to protect species such as the monarch butterfly;
• President Calderon sees a Green Fund as a better way to reduce global carbon emissions than the Clean Development Mechanism.

UK environment secretary Hilary Benn, who is leading the UK-Mexico Sustainable Development Dialogue, writing in Viva la vida verde says “Mexico’s unique position as a newly industrialised country, with one of the highest global rates of biodiversity, plus a growing urban middle class and the changing consumption patterns this brings, make it all the more important for Mexicans to ‘live the green life."

Benn continues, “We have much to learn from each other... In this globally interconnected world, countries cannot achieve environmental protection and sustainable development alone.”

For all media enquiries, please contact Alex Johnson, Media and Publications Officer, Forum for the Future at a.johnson@forumforthefuture.org or on ++44 (0) 20 7324 3624 and on ++44 (0) 7765 253 231

Download a copy of the report in English here or Spanish here

Mexico makes big investment to develop tourism in Huatulco

Source: Travel News Daily
Friday, April 11, 2008

President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa of Mexico has confirmed Huatulco will receive an unprecedented investment of 54 million pesos (£2,577,386) in 2008 to develop Huatulco as a tourism destination. This is five times greater than the average investment since 2000.

Huatulco is a coastal town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca where the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains meet the Pacific Ocean. Huatulco is about 500km south of Acapulco and is divided into four main districts; the tourism industry will be developed around the town’s nine bays.

The Federal Government, the 12 Secretaries of State, the Oaxaca state government and the Huatulco local government have signed an agreement to implement a strategic and diverse programme to stimulate major economic growth for the local community and draw more national and international visitors to the area. The government and the private sector both recognise the potential for tourism in Huatulco and will work together with the community to ensure all developments, whether directly or indirectly linked to tourism, are properly co-ordinated and progressed. President Calderon said: “Huatulco will be the symbol of what the government, private initiatives and the public can achieve together following a clear action plan”.

Over the next six years 2,500 new hotel rooms will be built catering for all markets, with a focus on the premium traveler. The government is liaising with prestigious international brands and the private sector to build boutique hotels, five star properties, a golf course and low rise condominiums. Elizondo Torres, Minister of Tourism in Mexico, said: “It is important for us to work with international as well as national companies because they have the experience of the demands of tourism, and the aim for the development of Huatulco is to attract tourists from around the world”. Other important plans for tourism include the expansion of Huatulco airport to enable it to welcome direct flights from Europe and Asia and the provision of tourism amenities.

Improving the quality of life for those living in Huatulco is an equally significant component of the development programme. Credit will be offered for local people to start small and medium sized businesses, and housing and education projects will receive considerable investment."

Manuel Diaz Cebrian, Director of the Mexico Tourism Board UK, Ireland, Sweden and The Netherlands, said: “The sensitive and sustainable development of Huatulco as a tourism centre demonstrates the commitment of all stakeholders in the Mexican tourism economy to work together. The support for the local community and infrastructure are vitally important for the enduring success of tourism initiatives, which increasingly form a fundamental part of the Mexican economy.”

Source: http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/25385

Caribbean Tourism Industry Puts Renewable Energy in its Sights

Source: Environmental Leader

March 31, 2009

The Caribbean tourism sector - pushed by its hotel industry - has launched a 24-month project to move towards energy efficiency.

The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) - through its environmental arm, the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism (CAST) - are launching a $2 million effort to implement energy efficient practices and help hotels generate renewable energy.

The Caribbean Hotel Energy Efficiency Action Program (CHENACT) is using Barbados as a case study, complete with detailed energy audits that may render a better understanding of energy consumption patterns among Caribbean hotels, according to a press release.

CHENACT was the brainchild of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which is contributing $1 million. The remainder of the budget is coming from a number of participating agencies and the government of Barbados.

Other agencies include:

• The German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
• The Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE) based in Brussels.
• The Inter American Development Bank (IDB) through the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative (SECCI).
• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNDP)

The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria Partnership, a coalition of 27 organizations, last fall issued criteria for sustainable tourism.

The guidelines focus on four areas: maximizing tourism’s social and economic benefits to local communities; reducing negative impacts on cultural heritage; reducing harm to local environments; and planning for sustainability.

Source:
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/03/31/caribbean-tourism-industry-puts-renewable-energy-in-its-sights/

Marriott reducing cost by recycling

March 2, 2009

Hotel Reduces Costs by Recycling

By reducing its trash and recycling more, a Marriott Hotels location is generating savings.

After starting a recycling and composting program in February 2008, the University of Maryland University College Inn and Conference Center by Marriott has achieved significant savings, according to this press release.

Here is a comparison of 2008 versus 2007.

• In 2008, about 28 tons of trash left the hotel per month, or about 336 tons a year
• In 2007, the hotel generated about 37 tons of trash per month, or about 444 tons a year.

Of the 336 tons generated in 2008, 10 percent was recycled (glass, metal, paper, cardboard), 32 percent was composted (food scraps, plant materials), and 52 percent was trash that ended up in landfills. The recycling and composting resulted in annual savings of $6,000.

The hotel started a “green team” last year and hired as its compost vendor Envirelation Inc., according to the release. In addition to training employees on what can be recycled and how to separate it, the team examined other areas in the hotel that could be reevaluated, including the restaurant and kitchen.

Recently, Marriott began giving its customers the opportunity to “green” their hotel stay for an additional dollar per day.

Source: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/03/02/hotel-reduces-costs-by-recycling/

Loreto Bay article from USA today

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/secondhomes/2009-02-05-loreto-bay-la-paz_N.htm

Viewed on February 9, 2009

By Larry Olmsted, Special for USA TODAY

Mention "second home" and "Baja Peninsula" and many people think of Los Cabos, Mexico's most upscale resort. But the newest hotbed of residential development south of the border is a few hours north of Cabo, stretching from La Paz to Loreto.

La Paz (The Peace) is the capital of Baja Sur, one of two Mexican states that make up the 800-mile peninsula. With about 200,000 people, it is also the largest. The main attractions are beaches, desert and water sports, but the small city also boasts an impressive malecón, a waterfront promenade with shops, restaurants and hotels. Long popular with tourists for its combination of urban amenities and sleepy-fishing-town feel, La Paz is suddenly popular for its price: Homes are far less expensive in La Paz than in pricey Los Cabos, 130 miles south.

Two hours north of La Paz, Loreto is undergoing more aggressive development around a pristine bay that houses the 800-square-mile Bay of Loreto National Marine Park, a U.N. World Heritage Site. The area had been identified by FONATUR, the Mexican government's tourism investment arm, as a site with potential, and infrastructure was built to encourage development.

"The government has poured $200 million into an airport, roads, sewage, everything developers need," says Mark Codiroli, sales associate for the new JW Marriott Residences complex here and a longtime Baja real estate agent.

Codiroli, who is from San Francisco, became entranced with Baja Sur years ago and recently bought in Loreto. "If you were familiar with Cabo 30 years ago, when it was a sleepy getaway for Hollywood stars and fishermen, and you wished you had bought then, that's what this area is now. Prices are about half of comparables in Los Cabos."

Not everyone agrees. "Loreto is not the next Cabo," says Jim Spano, president of the Loreto Visitors Bureau. A master plan regulating building height, zoning and density will keep it from being overbuilt like Cabo, he says. "Think of Loreto as the 'Eco Cabo.' "

A look at three La Paz and Loreto neighborhoods

• La Paz: On a waterfront peninsula, Paraiso del Mar has the region's top golf course, an Arthur Hills design, plus homes and condos from $200,000 to more than $1 million; nearly 4,000 units are planned (paradiseofthesea.com). Many buyers consider downtown enclaves near the beach and shops, where bargains abound. Condos near the water begin at less than $100,000, two-bedroom homes with pools are in the $200,000s, and luxury homes with four-plus bedrooms run $500,000 to $1 million.

• Nopolo: Second-home construction is booming in this small beach resort town 7 miles south of historic downtown Loreto, including a JW Marriott Residences planned for late 2010. "People hear Marriott and think hotel or timeshare, but this is just whole ownership condos with a resort feel and hotel services," Codiroli says. The project has a spa, marina and private beach, and condos with two to four bedrooms will have waterfront views and outdoor living areas. Large condos begin at about $750,000. (liveloreto.com)

• Loreto Bay: One of the largest residential projects here with 6,000 planned homes, Loreto Bay uses a "new urbanism" design, with homes clustered into several villages strung along 3 miles of beach and linked by paths for bikes, walkers and golf carts. It has a golf course and hotel as well. Loreto Bay currently offers furnished two-bedroom casitas with extensive outdoor living areas for $365,000 with larger models under development. (loretobay.com)

ARCHIVE: Find more second-home destinations

UNWTO - Tourism in Economic down turn

29 January 2009

UNWTO Tourism Resilience Committee Stresses Need for “Smart Tourism”

28 January 2009: At the first Meeting of the UN World Tourism Organization’s (UNWTO) Tourism Resilience Committee, which convened on 28 January 2009, in Madrid, Spain, participants discussed the need for the sector’s short-term response to the economic down-turn to be aligned with long-term commitments to sustainable development, poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation.

Speaking at the meeting, UNWTO Assistant Secretary-General Geoffrey Lipman called on member States and the sector to strive for “smart tourism,” which he defined as clean, green, ethical and quality at all levels of the service chain. He underlined that the green economy approach is well suited to the tourism sector, noting that many green tourism jobs could be created. [UNWTO Press Release]

Sustainable Travel Int'l Eco-Certification

"The Sustainable Tourism Eco-Certification Program™ (STEP) is the world's first comprehensive, global sustainable tourism eco-certification program offered by a non-profit organization. It's designed to be user-friendly, educational in nature, practical as a measurement and management tool, and applicable to tourism businesses of all sizes, including newcomers to sustainability, those wanting to improve their existing approach, and businesses that have long-standing sustainability programs. For more information, please review the web pages detailed above or download a STEP brochure."

http://www.sustainabletravelinternational.org/documents/op_steplearn.html.

The Business of EcoTourism

GreenMoneyJournal.com

The Business of EcoTourism By Martha Honey Ecotourism is like the elephant, not only is it large, it also appears to be very different, depending on which part is being examined. A blindfolded person, touching the trunk, the tail, the tusk, or the belly, is likely to conjure up very different versions. For many indigenous and poor rural communities, development NGOs, and international financial institutions, ecotourism is a poverty-alleviation strategy, -a cleaner, greener alternative to logging, plantation agriculture, mining, oil drilling, and other extractive industries. For the world's protected-area managers, ecotourism is a tool for saving rhinos and rainforests. And for a growing number of countries on all continents, ecotourism is an important-in some cases, the most important-source of foreign exchange. http://www.green-money.com/article.mpl?articleid=467&newsletterid=14