The Maya Riviera’s Queen of Green

Mexican activist Beatriz Barreal has worked for years to steer the booming Riviera Maya toward sustainability. Purdue’s Dr. Jonathon Day recently interviewed this local one-woman force for improving stewardship to find out what lessons she has learned in the process.

All photos courtesy of Beatriz Barreal Danel.

Meet Beatriz Barreal

For more than a decade, Beatriz Barreal Danel has worked to make sure that the Riviera Maya, the Caribbean coastal region of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, embraces sustainable tourism practices as it continues to grow. Destination sustainability is a long-term commitment, and Beatriz and her collaborators have had to overcome many challenges.

The Riviera Maya is one of Mexico’s most popular and fastest growing destinations, with numerous all-inclusive resorts and luxury hotels. It stretches along 120 km of coastline on the Caribbean Sea south of Cancun and includes the towns of Tulum, Solidaridad, Playa del Carmen, Akumal, and Puerto Aventuras. As the destination continues to grow, Beatriz has been a vocal advocate for sustainable tourism and good destination stewardship.

Beatriz is the Founder and CEO of Sustainable Riviera Maya, an NGO. She is currently serving her third term on the board of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. Since 2009 Beatriz has dedicated her time to making sustainable tourism the primary driver for development in Mexico, at both national and regional levels. An early adopter of the GSTC destination criteria, Sustainable Riviera Maya is now working toward certifying the municipality of Playa del Carmen as a sustainable destination through GSTC-accredited certification bodies.

Through the years, Beatriz has gained valuable insights into effective ways to implement sustainable tourism. She recently shared these three key lessons from her sustainability journey with the Destination Stewardship Report.

1. Measuring the right things.
Focusing on sustainability indicators that are meaningful for the local community has been an important step in implementing sustainable tourism in the destination.

Beatriz works on a family needs assessment in a village near Tulum.

While the team at Playa del Carmen recognized that sustainable tourism certification requires measuring a wide range of indicators, the importance of giving particular attention to their specific circumstances became an important lesson. Beatriz says, “In our community, focusing on healthy water management, waste management, bio-conservation, and the quality of life of the residents are the key indicators of success for our sustainability programs.” Those four priorities gave rise to the second lesson:

2. Getting the right people to the table.
Early in the process of adopting sustainable tourism in the Riviera Maya, Beatriz gathered a group of interested tourism industry partners, including hoteliers and tour attraction managers. Over time it became clear that, while these people were important stakeholders, destination sustainability also requires input from people beyond tourism.

Working carefully through those four priority criteria and identifying partners that can give meaningful information on indicators for them has been a gamechanger for the destination. Today, in addition to hospitality partners, Sustainable Riviera Maya works with a range of specialists from outside the tourism industry. To ensure effective water management, for example, the local government water department and the water management company, Aguacan, are both at the table and contributing to the plan. Perhaps more important, a benefit of working closely with these new partners is that they have greater understanding of the nuances of how to measure those key indicators.

3. Engaging the Community.
Perhaps the greatest insight from Playa Del Carmen is the importance of engaging the community, of including other organizations with shared values in the sustainability process. A new website, originally designed to provide information to stakeholders, has now taken on the important role of engaging partners in sustainability projects. It’s currently in beta testing with organizations in the destination. By creating a platform where projects can be shared with the community, new partners have aligned their activities with the sustainable destination goals.

Helping  with a tree planting project in the Maya village of Muyil, supported by the Banyan Tree Mayakoba hotel.

In one example, the Mexican Association of Aboriculture, committed to planting trees in the city and creating a living museum. In another project, a caving group, Circulo Espeleologico del Mayab has joined with local authorities to preserve cenotes, the region’s signature limestone pools. The project helps create unique experiences for visitors and improve water quality for the community. In yet another project, an NGO called Guardians of the Caribbean, have committed to an education and awareness campaign highlighting ways to protect water resources for the people of the region.

Sustainability is a team effort requiring many stakeholders who are involved and engaged, including the local people. Beatriz describes the team “like a diamond and its facets, that will only be completed when all the facets come together and shine at the same time.” Beyond just engagement, Sustainable Riviera Maya is committed to ensuring that the benefits of tourism are broadly distributed across the community. Their tagline sums it up: “Paradise is forever, only if it is for everyone.”

Committed to the long term
Sustainability is an ongoing process and there is always something more to be done. Beatriz is committed to “kaizen”, the Japanese term for “continuous improvement.” That allegiance to long-term performance management is central to the story of sustainability in the region. While there is still much to be done, there is now a team in the Riviera Maya committed to ensuring that the growth of tourism places like Playa del Carmen will be built on principles of sustainable tourism.

Website: http://rivieramayasostenible.org/  Follow Riviera Maya Sostenible on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rivieramayasostenible

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Author: Dr Jonathon Day leads the Sustainable Tourism and Responsible Travel Lab at Purdue University: www.sustainabletourismandresponsibletravel.com

Doing It Better: Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico

[Above: The town of Tequila. Photo: German Lopez from Pixabay ]

Editor’s note: With this post we offer the second of our profiles of destination organizations that at least partially meet the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s destination-management criterion A1 (formerly A2), which reads in part:

“The destination has an effective organization, department, group, or committee responsible for a coordinated approach to sustainable tourism, . . . for the management of environmental, economic, social, and cultural issues.”

The requirement seems obvious, yet very few places around the world come even remotely close to meeting it. Below is Ellen Rugh’s profile of another one that does. We hope this information will provide other places with ideas on how better to manage tourism’s hazards and benefits. To join in our search for more examples of holistic destination management, or submit a candidate for profiling, read more here.

The Council of Integral Development of Tequila A.C. (CODIT): Using Advanced Tech for Destination Management

Introduction

The town and municipality of Tequila is in the west-central state of Jalisco, Mexico. Founded in 2013 as a civic association, CODIT presents us with a broad-reaching model of a destination management organization (DMO) that uses 21st-century technological monitoring and data collecting in order to make the most informed decisions on sustainable tourism development and destination stewardship.

With its genesis through Mexico’s Magic Towns program, CODIT has managed to survive, if not thrive, through the country’s changes in government, unlike many of its Magic Towns counterparts.  Today, Tequila’s in-progress drive for certification as an “Intelligent Destination” by the Secretary of Tourism of Spain (SEGITTUR) drives many of CODIT’s core concepts. CODIT’s representative, Federico de Arteaga Vidiella, provided much of the following data. He sits on the Council and is responsible for the Intelligent Destination project.

Context

The CODIT model stretches beyond just tourism. In fact, “Sustainable Tourism Development” represents just one core concept for the organization, with additional branches dedicated to “Social Development, Culture, And Values,” “Development of Infrastructure, Environment and Urban Planning,” and “Economic, Institutional, Jurisdictional and Administrative Development.”

Working towards its certification as a SEGITTUR Intelligent Destination, CODIT gathers data from sensors, apps, smart phones, etc. to increase the effectiveness of local tourism products and services. To promote distinctive experiences, CODIT has installed Wifi access within the entire historic area and created an interactive app with push notification. Tourists can log in to learn the best photo spots, services offerings, and transportation routes around town.  Using big data to measure tourist distribution throughout the city, CODIT’s app strives to incorporate population groups that have not benefited so far from tourism. If you’re a tourist waiting for your chosen restaurant, it can suggest different places to eat or other things to do while waiting, such as a distillery tour or a walk in a different part of town.

CODIT thus opens up new opportunities for businesses, as tourists don’t end up concentrated in the historic center and eating at the few nearby restaurants. This model not only redistributes economic benefit, but also avoids visitor dissatisfaction by lowering restaurant wait times.

Activities

Tequila’s tourist system communicates experiences through different channels, such as through tourist apps, social networks, the state and federal secretaries of tourism, and private companies at the national and international level.

CODIT additionally works with the Directorate of Tourism of the City Council and with the Magic Towns Committee to schedule cultural, sporting, environmental and entertainment events. Residents get involved in a natural way, since Tequila’s society participates in many of these events, processions, and parties, either through organization, communication, direct participation, or assistance. To help develop adventure tourism in the region, CODIT has also sponsored local guides and tour operators to complete excursionist certification courses.

Sustainability and Stewardship

CODIT’s main strategy being sustainability, and the main vocation of Tequila being tourism, sustainable tourism has become CODIT’s keystone. The council considers sustainability multidisciplinary – economic, social, environmental, and institutional – and integrates explicit responsibilities for sustainability into their projects, working groups, international certifications, and more. Working groups for sustainability, innovation, technology, accessibility, and governance operate within the framework of the Magical Towns and Smart Tourist Destination Committee. Each group works to accomplish projects both within and across these themes.

As a Magic Town within the World Heritage agave landscape inscribed under UNESCO and a candidate for certification as a SEGITTUR Intelligent Destination, Tequila must therefore protect the sustainable, natural, cultural, and aesthetic character of the place. To assist in environmental protection, for instance, CODIT has implemented a recycling program and has constructed a nursery to restore endangered native plant species.

Even with tourism development being its main focus, CODIT extends its reach into other areas related to destination stewardship. For example, CODIT assisted in supporting one young local resident’s project relating to street dogs, sharing their technology and data to help him map the area, identify the location of the dogs, and decide the safest place to move them.

Managing Tourism Sustainably

CODIT states that Tequila has not yet had problems with overtourism in the destination. Tequila’s desire to achieve a sustainable tourism plan right from the beginning intrinsically incorporates the management of mass tourism. Using their Intelligent Destination technology, CODIT compares year-over-year peak season visitor statistics and identifies the major hotspot locations. With this data, they can identify the amount of traffic around the more heavily touristed historic area, for example, and install the necessary infrastructure to meet demand. They also measure transportation types and levels to ensure that people are dispersed better throughout the city, thus improving economic development.

Grilled corn vendor in Tequila. Photo by Gzzz.

Community Engagement

CODIT claims federal, state, and municipal participation, as well as inclusion of private business associations, NGOs, and local universities. These stakeholders came together to collectively set CODIT’s initial goals and long-term strategic plan. During this start-up phase, CODIT says that the stakeholders agreed upon about 70 to 80% of issues. Any issues with unsettled differences or concerns were removed, so that the long-term vision statement could be set with everyone in agreement.

CODIT cites the most effective element in their governance process has been the election of decisive leaders who represent the collective interest of local stakeholders and truly want to make changes. The council’s representative, Federico de Arteaga Vidiella, bluntly states that in certain situations extended deliberation among all community stakeholders may not be the best method to achieve results. Instead, CODIT encourages the voice of local residents through their representation by the board’s Citizen Co-President, and through consultation on specific projects. CODIT additionally urges participation from local universities, because many students and faculty are local themselves. CODIT also recognizes that local engagement depends on the character of the place. Here, where tourism and tequila production are the main vocations, they must make sure the voices of tequila farmers, distillers, and more are heard as well as hotels, restaurants, and tour operators.

For specific projects, the council understands that active communication with local stakeholders is crucial to success and local acceptance, because the residents will believe more in projects with which they can participate. On a neighborhood renewal project, for example, CODIT wanted to bring vibrancy to some less-trafficked areas with bright, new paint colors. For this simple project, CODIT conducted surveys, spoke directly with locals and civil society groups, and consulted architectural institutions in local universities to decide on the best colors to represent Tequila.

Organization Structure and Governance

CODIT was strategically founded as a civic association in order to make the organization less susceptible to changes in government and thus able to create long-term plans that would not rely on any particular political party for survival. This legal arrangement was also intended to increase business investment through tax incentives and to allow leverage of resources from international organizations, such as the Inter-American Development Bank.

CODIT does not hold scheduled internal elections and tends instead to act on consensus. Every year, for example, the council has to agree that the current citizen co-chair should continue in that role. The council does have the ability to vote out a person if needed, but so far it has never done so.

CODIT comprises of a multifaceted governance arrangement, currently composed of 44 members who fall within four main groups: founding members, active members, honorary members, and operative members. Each provides a certain level of support within the organization.

Operations and technical structure: CODIT incorporates active members, operative members, and a technical council into their organization structure. Four technical advisors and three operative personnel support the team. CODIT says that a key to their success is having a full-time, paid coordinator, as well as having both operative and strategic management on constant basis. External alliances provide crucial technical and operative resources.

Administrative and representative structure: The Board of Directors includes a citizen co-chair, a government co-chair, a secretary, a treasurer, and a spokesperson, who hold the final decision-making authority. A group of additional advisors play a role in strategic planning, including a representative from the Tequila Route and one from Grupo JB, a private company best known for their Jose Cuervo tequila. Thus a broad range of organizations can have some voice in CODIT affairs.

A jimador, an agave farmer, tends the plants that yield tequila and characterize the region’s inscription as a World Heritage site. Photo: Giacomo Bruno.

Even without formal internal elections, CODIT reports that about 20% of the council changes regularly due to external group elections. Representatives from private organizations, such as hoteliers’ associations, restaurant associations, etc, may shift representation based on their own elections. The government co-chair has rotated as the municipal government changes, with elections occurring every three years. Thus a good, naturally-occurring rotation of voices represents member interests.

Funding

CODIT works on an annual budget of around $150,000, largely financed by the federal and state secretaries of tourism and by Grupo JB. The Inter-American Development Bank has also provided project-specific funding in the past and helps support the CODIT website. Members must additionally contribute to the council through expertise, money, in-kind support, or time. One business member, for instance, seconded one of its own people to work in CODIT for a full year, documenting all tourist products offered in Tequila.

Measures of Success

CODIT attributes their success to the clear indicators and pre-established goals outlined in their long-term strategic plan. Every month CODIT evaluates progress using the indicators established by SEGITTUR within the tourism pillars of governance, sustainability, innovation, technology and accessibility. (Unfortunately, we have so far been unable to obtain any examples of progress reported.)

My Commentary

CODIT’s technical innovations and big data solutions show a new side to destination management, perhaps eliminating some of the problems that destinations face before they occur. Accessibility and connectivity drive visitors into the city by creating easy-access to information. CODIT has a firm vision and organization structure, with careful consideration taken during its inception process to ensure long-term governance that can withstand political changes affecting funding.

While CODIT has said that their funding has varied based on political changes over the years, the council’s survival attests to its careful management, especially in comparison to many other destinations originally designated under Mexico’s Magic Towns initiative.

Alternatively, CODIT can do more in terms of stewardship. I would love to see CODIT take a stronger role in partnering with local stakeholders to further develop distinctive tourism experiences. Additionally, the data collected shows little evidence of any vetting process for their promotional materials that places greater emphasize tourism businesses who have championed sustainability or supported their communities through impact tourism.

Local stakeholder engagement is key to holistic destination management. Compared to our other case studies, this council does not stress community deliberative processes, although they do gather project-specific community feedback and include a wide array of public, private, and civil society interests within their governance structure.

In this case, further research would be required to collect more evidence of outreach to ensure local resident satisfaction, or evidence of adaptive strategy. Additionally, while CODIT champions sustainability and transparency, we found difficulties in accessing the documents relating to the performance of CODIT in terms of SEGITTUR’s specific indicators. This is crucial to understanding their exact performance in project implementation and sustainability, and establishing credibility beyond self-reported claims.

We welcome comments from those with knowledge of Tequila and its stewardship.

“Inspiring Places” Pilot Video Released

[Above: A Sierra Gorda panorama. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot]

Featuring Sierra Gorda, Querétaro, Mexico

We chose the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve as the international pilot for this series because of one organization’s well-established success in their approach to conservation: Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda. In the videos, our two millennial hosts enjoy exploring the region as they discover how Grupo Ecológico has achieved its success.

Video hosts Ian and Christian at Cuatro Palos, Sierra Gorda. Photo: Hassen Salum

By working closely both with the local rural population, many of whom live at subsistence level, and with a succession of state and local governments, Grupo Ecológico has helped protect a wide variety of natural habitats while gradually making northeastern Querétaro into a scenic paradise for international travelers seeking an authentic Mexican experience.

You can now see and link to the Sierra Gorda videos on our YouTube channel, World’s Inspiring Places.  There are three versions:

Subscribe to the channel to see additional videos about Sierra Gorda and shooting World’s Inspiring Places pilot.

The World’s Inspiring Places is a short-form online travel series created by Erika Gilsdorf, owner and producer of South Shore Productions, and Jonathan Tourtellot, director of the Destination Stewardship Center, both based in the United States. The series aims to showcase stewardship success stories around the world where people are working to help conserve or preserve the cultural and natural heritage of a destination, or creating a unique travel experience the supports and builds on that heritage.

Destinations do not pay for the videos; we look instead for external support free from local conflict of interest. In the case of Sierra Gorda, we are grateful for generous support from Freightliner.

The mission of World’s Inspiring Places is to encourage travelers to visit, enjoy, and appreciate authentic destinations that protect their nature, culture, and sense of place; to help individuals, businesses, and governments care for these places and the people who live there; and to inform and inspire leaders to secure a solid economic future through wise destination stewardship.

For two reasons, we encourage you to enjoy the Sierra Gorda videos and link to them through your own social media, blogs, or websites. First, Grupo Ecológico’s work is truly a model for the rest of the world, worthy of dissemination. Second, we seek new topics for World’s Inspiring Places and, of course, ongoing sponsorship support for a series that will, we hope, showcase the world’s best examples of great stewardship and rewarding travel.

Our thanks to Grupo Ecológico for their help with our six-day shoot this past August, and with my own visit in October. Our appreciation also to Freightliner for their financial support and to Antonio del Rosal of Experiencias Genuinas  for his assistance in serving as our Mexican liaison.

If you have a proposal for the next World’s Inspiring Places, please see our page on how to apply, or contact us to begin a conversation.

Contact us, too, if you would like to download your own copy of a video, including a high-resolution version for audience presentations and the like.

Sierra Gorda To Lead New Video Series

[Above: Video hosts Ian and Christian at Cuatro Palos, Sierra Gorda. Photo: Hassen Salum]

Our First “World’s Inspiring Places,” a Short-Form Travel Documentary

I can’t wait to show everyone this amazing place I’ve fallen in love with and tell the story of what makes it truly inspiring. Mexico’s Sierra Gorda is the star of our new online travel pilot, The World’s Inspiring Places, a video that we are releasing Sunday January 28, 2018. It prelaunched on 15 January 2018 with a one-minute version at the Awards Forum of the United Nations World Tourism Organization in Madrid, Spain. Check out the trailer!

For me, the concept behind The World’s Inspiring Places probably started the day I found myself yelling at a tourist to stop standing on the coral while they cleared their goggles. I’d had enough of overcrowded destinations making a buck at the expense of nature. It was time for me to focus on places in the world that were doing something right to protect where people loved to travel.

My passion led me to some of my first stories in Central America around reforestation, coral reef protection, overfishing and sustainable tourism.

My son got to tag along with me on shoots and grew up seeing sometimes the not-so-great underbelly from the impacts of such things as overdevelopment, logging, and poverty. While friends were boasting about their recent cruise or resort vacation, my son had been learning how local villagers were replanting sides of mountains, or he’d be on a boat with biologists counting boat propeller cuts on whale shark backs. It wasn’t always pretty. But it was definitely inspiring. Despite what often seemed like insurmountable challenges, these regular people, often with fewer means than most, were doing extraordinary things to protect their own places.

For me it’s fun that my son, Christian—he’s the one with the man bun in the videos—agreed to be one of the hosts, along with his college friend Ian. They further agreed to meet our very tight budget by hosting, well, for the fun of the trip. So we were off for an incredible 6-day filming project with a small, never-tiring, amazing crew from Mexico.

We set the bar high choosing the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve as the pilot for this series. Grupo Ecológico is a small organization that has had incredible success recognized globally in their approach to conservation, all while making an adventurer’s paradise. We appreciate Freightliner‘s support in covering the costs of video production and thereby supporting the work of Grupo Ecológico.

I’ve found my career’s passion in producing The World’s Inspiring Places, and it’s happened by partnering with Jonathan Tourtellot and the Destination Stewardship Center. A venture like this can’t be done alone, and it’s been fun joining forces to tell stewardship success stories from the traveler’s point of view—stories of truly inspiring people and places.

Join us as next week as we travel through the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve. Find out for yourself why this place is one of the best.

Tell us what you think! And if you have a proposal for the next “World’s Inspiring Places,” see our page on how to apply, or contact us to begin a conversation.