Global poverty is uneven: Gilles Beville, president of ATES

Ecotourism of today is a tool of development and has its base on 5 points:

Ecotourism of today is a tool of development and has its base on 5 points:

Global poverty is uneven, unacceptable and a source of political tension. The aim is to reduce the inequalities. Gilles Beville, President of the Association for social and solidarity tourism speaks yesterday in La Reunion yesterday at the UNWTO and French Government Conference on Sustainable Development of Tourism in Islands.

He continues to say: “These economies are based on agriculture and tourism could give them the opportunity to diversify and render the places more dynamic. The negative is the impact tourism can have on the environment. Ecotourism depends on balancing the flow of tourism as opposed to maximizing profit. There is a partnership between communities and tour opportunities and should be long term. Fair trade, eco-commerce are tools for development and based on transparency. Tour operators are looking for profit, but not maximum profit. Primary objective is not making money for shareholders. In many of these islands, tourism should have a small impact. Objective is to create a maximum relationship with the local economy and must respect culture and local population. How the price can be divided: 36% remains on the territory where the visitor is hosted, 4 or 5% goes to development projects. It sets up a system of guarantees so that the values exist in reality. They are working on a system for tour operators based on these principles. There should be an increase in revenues and job creation. They are proposing tourism based on regional development with a horizontal approach.”

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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