Alternatives to Ecolodges

Options for conserving biodiversity through tourism

 When considering sustainable or ecotourism as an economic alternative, NGO’s often immediately embrace or dismiss the concept based on the potential construction of an ecolodge. 

 While local circumstances may warrant the development of demonstration ecolodges in specific situations, equal or greater conservation impacts may be realized through considering alternative tourism related strategies. While CI has historically financed large ecotourism construction projects, the failures (Gudigwa) outnumber successes (Chalalan), and the investment in capital, time and technical assistance often exceeds the return on investment for conservation.  

Some of these alternative tourism enterprise based interventions can include:

1.      Investing in private sector tourism development (Verde Ventures)

2.      Partnering with private sector to add biodiversity value to its tourism business

3.      Building capacity among communities and local entrepreneurs to develop small-scale businesses and link them to the value chain

4.      Upgrading facilities with modest investments in return for conservation commitments.

These alternatives consist of developing mechanisms to generate income from conservation, preferably utilizing existing tourism structures. In addition to the above, there are two other alternative tourism based mechanisms that CI can utilize more effectively, which are discussed here. They are:

-          Tourism User Fees

-          Concessions.

The underlying assumption is that NGO’s want to generate the highest return and lowest risk economic alternatives for communities, and if tourism is an option, what are our choices apart from infrastructure?

 The purpose of this document is to provide further information on these additional two mechanisms, and to elicit input from CI regional programs on the potential applicability of these mechanisms in their local context. If your regional program has specific examples or situations where TUF’s and / or Concessions have been used, or could be used, we would encourage you to bring some examples to be discussed at the workshop in Costa Rica.

We would like to identify 2 – 3 sites in which such mechanisms can be utilized and monitored as we develop this body of knowledge within CI.

We would like to use this information to develop a web based decision tree tool for CI field staff to have available  when developing tourism interventions.

 Additionally, the Ecotourism program at CI is working on a Best Practices for Concessions document, which will serve as a follow up to this, and which, we hope, will be informed by this document.

 Tourism User Fees – (TUF) – defined as “Fees on tourism-based activities designed to generate revenues to support conservation[1]”, are site based mechanisms (as opposed to national) to generate revenue from tourism based activities which can then be directed towards supporting PA and other conservation efforts. This encompasses activities ranging from charging for entry, to overnight stays / camping, to concessions (see separate note below), to licenses and permits as well as tourism based taxes that can be levied at hotels, airports and other collection points.

 By working with the parties that have management rights / responsibilities over a natural resource or habitat (communities, Buddhists, etc) , and encouraging them to develop an user fee system, we are encouraging a relatively low risk, low investment option that will generate income from pre-existing tourism flows, and provide an economic incentive for conservation. Additionally, it forces the resource managers to consider management decisions related to the conservation area and its use, as well as consider the impact of the income on the local economy, all of which will test local structures. Furthermore, assuming records are kept, it should also provide a baseline of information on the numbers and seasonality of tourists to the particular conservation area. This information becomes particularly useful in the event further tourism investments are being considered. In terms of cash flow, this option will be slower to start, and has numerous management issues associated with it.

 Concessions – At  their core, concessions are lease agreements between the resource manager / owner, and an investor / enterprise, who / which agrees to pay some combination of a fixed / variable fee (in some cases, regardless of volume), in exchange for the use of the natural resource. The advantage of this is that the long term ownership (of the land) remains with the community / resource manager, while also providing them with a source of income over time with minimal upfront investment and risk. Furthermore, the agreement can be structured to require the concessionaire to meet conservation targets.

 Depending on the structure and nature of these agreements, they could be classified as low / medium risk, with low / medium investment requirements (esp. if CI provides the technical input to develop the agreement and spreads the cost of this over several projects). In terms of cash flow, this can be a lot faster and cleaner that TUF’s. For example, in Botswana, the fixed component of the concessions is around $100,000 per annum, PLUS 4% of the sales ! The challenge lies in finding a strong investor a quality of site that can command such a sum.

When compared to ecolodge development and operation, particularly where there are no private sector investors involved, TUF’s and Concession agreements offer considerably lower risk, and lower cost options to utilizing tourism to achieve our conservation objectives. Additionally, when compared against their potential to achieve our conservation outcomes, our hypothesis is that concession agreements may rank along side Ecolodges, but at a much lower cost. However, this thesis has yet to be tested.

 We would be interested in additional opportunities to test and review these options and the underlying assumptions with the field programs.