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USAID helps to unlock Colombia’s tourism potential in a post COVID-19 reality

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Colombia was becoming a top travel destination, growing an average of 9 percent in number of visitors from 2012 to 2019, compared to a 4.4 percent growth worldwide, and 5.3 percent growth in the during the same period. The signature of the 2016 Peace Agreement led to a greater possibility to explore and discover numerous well-conserved areas throughout Colombia.

Well organized and socially responsible nature tourism is an opportunity for conservation as it provides additional income to rural communities, making them less dependent on unsustainable economic activities. However, several factors including limited knowledge and public awareness of the biodiversity richness in these areas, untrained human capital, and rudimentary infrastructure and accessibility, hinder the tourism sector’s potential growth. Current unsustainable tourism practices also threaten natural resources and that local communities depend on. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of the sector, which has lost 95 percent of the revenue and it will take at least four years to recover and return to 2019 levels. Further exacerbating the situation in rural communities is the fact that those whose livelihoods depended on nature tourism activities are even more vulnerable as they lack access to adequate health services and the capabilities to overcome this situation.

All of these difficulties and limitations are an opportunity to develop nature tourism as a tool for conservation and livelihood improvement. Therefore, USAID’s Natural Wealth Program responded to many of these challenges by implementing a holistic strategy: assisting rural and indigenous communities, linking private sector actors and NGOs, and USAID helps to unlock Colombia’s nature tourism potential in a post COVID-19 reality working with the to bolster nature tourism as an opportunity to achieve self-reliance in the territories and conserve the country’s rich biodiversity.

The strategy specific challenges facing nature tourism through six pillars:

1 - Public Awareness: Rural communities’ lack of environmental awareness of their territories results in missed opportunities to conserve their natural wealth. Thus, the Program – along with local NGOs – has engaged more than 800 students and 25 educational and grassroots organizations to foster conservation of the tropical dry forest and the flooded for future generations.

2 - Knowledge: Without information and real-time data about the territory, communities and tourism providers do not know what their offers and cannot implement conservation strategies to preserve . Natural Wealth along with Colombia’s National Biodiversity Institute has implemented monitoring strategies alongside communities and NGOs such as Hijos de la Sierra Flor, involving camera trapping activities. As a result, the initiative has obtained more than 165,000 photos and videos including 39 species in Montes de María, and 31 in Orinoquía. The Program has engaged more than 250 participants to date, including a high involvement among youth and women. This information is valuable to promote a destination and to link monitoring work and nature tourism in benefit of biodiversity conservation.

3 – Training: To assure the human capital necessary for the sector to thrive and to promote the generational renewal needed in rural areas, Natural Wealth and partner Kuepa (a Latin American educational organization) is training young women and men (see graph below) in the Serranía del Perijá on topics of hospitality and tourism management, ecotourism (e.g., natural ecosystem restoration, birdwatching), English as a second language, and entrepreneurial skills. USAID helps to unlock Colombia’s nature tourism potential in a post COVID-19 reality

4 – Capacity Building:At the organizational level, the Program works with local organizations, providers, and the Government of Colombia in: a) training tourism providers to respond to international travelers’ needs and improve their administrative and marketing skills (e.g., ProColombia’s international tourism training program), b) structuring tourism destinations, and c) strengthening small organizations to provide small scale ecotourism services. To date the Program has built more than 70 travel packages and trained more than 100 people through conservation and tourism workshops in the Program’s target landscapes.

5 – Links to markets: Through Awake Travel, a Colombian Online nature tourism marketplace, Natural Wealth is connecting destinations with travelers both domestically and internationally who are interested in nature tourism attractions. The Program is also working with NGOs to use digital tools and social media to market their services. Finally, the Program is supporting ProColombia (Colombia’s government exporting promoter) to host in November the 2020 Nature Travel Mart to promote Colombian destinations within international markets.

6 – Government of Colombia: To assist the Government of Colombia in strengthening the nature tourism sector, the Program: supported the legal framework review to acquire nature tourism guide licenses (a key element for nature tourism activities), participated in the development of the national tourism guiding school, and is developing the National Handbook for Nature Tourism Guides.

Finally, looking ahead to kickstart nature tourism opportunities post COVID 19, the Program in alliance with the Tourism Organization and Colombia’s Tourism Ministry launched the Colombia Natural Wealth Award – a contest calling for proposals from every sector with the best initiatives to help transform the sector with innovative approaches to promote ecosystem conservation. To date, the contest has received more than 1,000 proposals from across the country. USAID helps to unlock Colombia’s nature tourism potential in a post COVID-19 reality

Overall, Natural Wealth’s nature tourism strategy provides a roadmap to achieve lasting conservation efforts and provide economic alternatives for rural communities. With this effort, the Program aims to propel once again Colombia’s rich biodiversity as a means for sustainable development.

Esta publicación se hizo posible gracias al apoyo del pueblo de los Estados Unidos de América, a través de la Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID). Los contenidos de esta publicación son responsabilidad de Chemonics International y no reflejan necesariamente la opinión de USAID o del Gobierno de los Estados Unidos.