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STI News Blog >> Blog Home Holly Jones Market Access for Community Tourism - The Missing Link
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Who is doing it? How are they making it happen?
Meet Jose, the owner of the amazing waterfall tour. Jose designed a gorgeous hike along a lush, green jungle path. Tropical birds chirp happily, colorful butterflies flutter among the exotic flowers, and you can swim at the base of a dazzling waterfall, just like you see on the Travel Channel! Thanks to donors and technical assistance, the tour is 100% sustainable. Jose uses recycled paper, he installed energy saving appliances, and he employs local women and youth as guides. He meets all of the international “green” standards. Tourists are going to love this place! Jose should ready for action on the global stage, right?
Community-based eco-destinations like this need to reach markets to become sustainable.
Los Pinos Nature Trails and Restaurant, Lake Coatepeque, El Salvador
Small problem. Nobody except Jose and a handful of others know that the waterfall even exists. The technical assistance that Jose received didn’t address marketing. Tour operators in the region have never seen the waterfall. The journalist for the national newspaper’s “Travel Section” was never invited to write about the tour. Jose doesn’t feel comfortable approaching hotels and restaurants to distribute information. While the amazing waterfall tour is environmentally sustainable, do you think Jose will be selling very many tours?
The Tell-Tale Heart
I’ve been working on the ground in El Salvador for over three years. El Salvador is an emerging destination that’s been putting its money on eco-adventure tourism for just under a decade or so. In a nutshell, the EplerWood International (EWI) project that I was working on was centered on the creation of sustainable eco-tours that would contribute to biodiversity conservation goals and improve livelihoods through increasing incomes and building awareness of environmental issues. The triple bottom line theory at its finest.
My team and I spent years working hand-in-hand with “mom ‘n’ pop” operations like Jose’s to design attractive, sustainable tours. We held workshops ranging from food preparation and guide training, to waste water management and marketing techniques. While I coordinated with the entrepreneurs month after month, I could hear the triple bottom line whispering in the distance, “Which comes first? Saving the trees and recycled paper cups? Training local guides? Designing brochures?” I painstakingly scrutinized how effective our work was from a biologist’s angle, an educator’s angle, and a business angle. The triple bottom line was giving me a lot of doubts; doubts that have spurred me to undertake this blog.
Advice from Dad
Working in the field taught me many lessons, but perhaps the most important one has been this: most people are trying to do a lot of things at once. As I met people and listened to their stories, I realized that the woman who is guiding a tour through the basket-weaving workshop is a mother of four, an aunt of two, and picks coffee in the early mornings. Remember Jose and his waterfall tour? Jose is also a father of five and sells used furniture on the highway. These people who are trying to make a living in tourism also have many other demands on their plates; getting food on that plate is one of them.
As the months and years passed, and the eco-tours in El Salvador slowly materialized, I became very aware there was only one bottom line for the entrepreneurs, not three. A different… theory, if you will, began ringing loudly in my ears, and it wasn’t the triple bottom line. As my Dad has told me my entire life, “You know, Holl, I don’t wanna say it’s all about the money, but it’s about the money.”
For a struggling entrepreneur like Jose, if times are getting tough financially, and it costs $3 less to buy Styrofoam cups over the sustainable recycled paper cups, what might he conclude? If tourists are thirsty, they are still going to be happy if they are served cold drinks in Styrofoam cups. Jose understands that a green tour is better for the environment and his family’s health, but his daily survival depends on first communicating that the tour is available on the market and then making the sale. Afterward, he can afford to buy recycled cups on a regular basis. Not before.
The Balancing Act
I bring a fresh pair eyes to the sustainable development world. I’ve been in the classroom, I read the books, I attend the conferences, and I read the blogs. In our field, the dialog revolves primarily around being environmentally sustainable. Conversations about the importance of marketing and financial sustainability seem to be sidelined. People seem to forget that in order to “green a business”, you need to have a profit-generating business first.
“Markets For Community Tourism - The Missing Link” will take a look at these issues. We will explore accounts of those who have succeeded in selling their products and the high points and challenges of their green journey. I’ll be sharing these stories with you in the upcoming editions as I interview experts from around the world who can give insight about how people are accessing markets for community tourism and the paths that they have taken to sustainability
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