An invitation to adventure.

Satisfaction guaranteed?

Not quite yet in the rough-and-tumble world of ecotourism

In their search for adventure, ecotourists should not be surprised when the guide shows up late, the bed is lumpy, or the toilet doesn’t flush. Still, even the bravest travelers want some assurance that they will get what they pay for.

In the world of mass tourism, a traveler who chooses a hotel chain knows what to expect. But quality-through-homogeneity has no place in ecotourism. “By franchising, you lose the kind of aura that you have to offer guests,” says Megan Epler Wood, president of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES). “Nobody provides that aura better than an independent owner-manager.”

One way to solve the quality control problem is certification. Here, an independent organization judges an ecotourism enterprise on the degree to which it meets a set of criteria—quality of the natural attractions, wholesomeness of the food, benefits for the local community, environmental stewardship, etc. The enterprise wins a seal of approval, which will both inform and attract tourists.

Certification for ecotourism is still in its infancy. Perhaps the best known “green” certification program in Latin America is in Costa Rica. But here the focus is not ecotourism, but rather the environmental sensitivity of all hotels, large and small, on such things as recycling programs (for more information, go to www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr).

“There is now widespread recognition that certification is necessary to help the responsible traveler and hold the industry’s feet to the fire,” says Martha Honey, of the Washington, D.C.–based Institute for Policy Studies. She is co-author of a recent study Protecting Paradise: Certification Programs for Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism, which examines nearly 100 “green” certification and eco-labeling programs around the world (see www.ips-dc.org/ecotourism/).

The study points to equity as one problem. Small, national firms are financially less able to meet certification standards and pay for the certification process than bigger, international tourism enterprises. Therefore, instead of helping to level the playing field, certification will give the powerful firms a further competitive advantage.

At the very least, certification would help separate truly “green” ecolodges from hotels of other hues. For example, some mass tourism companies masquerade behind a thin veneer of “feel good” nature experiences, what Honey calls “ecotourism lite.” Then there is the practice of “greenwashing,” in which hotels urge their clients to accept such “environmentally friendly” practices as not demanding clean towels every day. “The idea is: ‘Save your towels, save the planet,’ ” said Honey at an IDB workshop. “Actually, it just saves the hotel some money.”

But this is not to say that mass tourism and its green sibling have nothing to offer each other, says Juan Luna-Kelser, project team leader of a major ecotourism project in the Brazilian Amazon being funded by the IDB. One of the aims of this new initiative, says Luna, is to develop good practices that the Bank will apply to its “sun and sand” operations. For example, the IDB is now insisting that local communities participate in the planning of all tourism projects and that they be fully informed of their costs and benefits.