Vidal Jaquehua on Sustainable Tourism in Ecuador & Peru

[Jacquie Whitt]

The fact that we took a group whose leader went to Galapagos Islands for free, as you know, it was because she has her group, and she had a full size group (14) ready to go. And the fact that they choose Adios Adventure Travel, it was because they know that we are very carefull whit their people and we are very attend to them.

I think that the fact of choosing the island hopping instead of the boats or the cruises to Galapagos is because we want to let the people know that there is a good number of people living there (a lot of times people thinks that
they will be the first ones there) but is a big surprice for a lot of
the people including the group members that we had, or even to me, for
the first time, that I was there. But now a day you can find over
40,000 people in the different islands of the Galapagos.

We believe that the tourist business can help us to develop one place in especial here in South America were we need to work, the people is not begging, but yes looking for to offer a service, to have a job. One
person can provide jobs to Peru or Ecuador,
and in that way take advantage of this activitie call tourism. This can have benefits in both ways, by one hand the tourist get
the service and by the other hand the local people can provide the
services, so as you know this can generate thousands of dollars for the
economy. But in alot of place the ones that get the benefit of this
activitie is just the big investors, (the rich get richer).

Land-Based tours of Galapagos Islands

That is the case of Galapagos where if the classic tourist goes there, go in a cruse spending thousents of dollars, and the only ones that get the benefit are the boat owners (small number of people ). A
lot of times the tourist are even taken to get to stay in the island, beliving that
those places are inhavited just buy the iguanas.

Staying in the island more people get to work in this activitie, and the local people also get to be involve in the eco-tourism, or became to be consius about the place where they live, so this is the
reason for us to choose this kind of activitie.

I think that we can make sure that the sustainable tourism is one of the ways to get there, involving the locals in order that they can offer their product, as you know Ecuador has a good growing economy.

They do export alot of product like roses, bananas, chocolate, etc, and i think that if they can develop other sector call tourism busines, it will be big there. This is the kind of place that has a
lot to offer.

On regards Peru.

I think that we try to encorage people to go on hikes because this is one of the direct ways to help so many families, because each hiker get two porters (two families) that get a good salary from the
company, so hiking the Inca Trail the tours get to help a lot of people
not only be in the place called Peru, is also providing jobs to the people. It
happens that if someone brings 7 friends, they can hike the Inca Trail for free.
This is how our company can promote the jobs for the porters who live in the small vilages and yet give the travelers a good deal.