VSocial provides insights into their development cooperation work in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia

Since 2002, VSocial has been supporting so-called community based tourism projects in which travellers come into contact with the local population and get to know their life, culture and traditions in an authentic way.

In Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, poverty still prevails, especially in rural areas. On the other hand, these countries offer outstanding tourism potentials precisely because of their diverse cultures and multifaceted biodiversity. The regional VSocial Coordinators on site analyse these tourism potentials together with the community, develop sustainable tourism offers and help the communities with international marketing. The aim is to ensure that the local population benefits from sustainable tourism. In addition, new income opportunities are created locally, sustainable development is promoted and a contribution is made to nature conservation.

Since the offers of the individual communities are quite different and there are no uniform criteria for community tourism, it is often difficult for an international audience to compare the individual products and to decide on one product. In addition, there are also offers in different comfort areas in community tourism.

To find a solution to this problem, VSocial, KATE Umwelt & Entwicklung and TourCert joined forces in 2017 to develop a certification system for community tourism with the help of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The basis for this was the existing tourism certificates of TourCert. In a first project starting in spring 2017 (end spring 2019), which was exclusively related to Ecuador, an innovative organisation and marketing model was developed and successfully tested as a simple certification system for community tourism in three pilot communities in Ecuador. Since summer 2018, VSocial and its partners have been working on a second project to apply the developed certification standards in other communities in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Through the integration of certified community tourism products into viventura group tours, communities supported by VSocial are also visited as part of viventura group tours.

In order to improve the marketing possibilities of the communities Ventura TRAVEL, KATE and GIZ have created the online marketing platform Fairtrips, where community tourism products can be booked worldwide by everyone.

The communities are already feeling the first positive effects, Paul Martínes from the community of Agua Blanca in Ecuador reports:

"My name is Paul Martinez. I am 47 years old, a tour guide in my community. At present I am also president of the government council of the community of Agua Blanca. Due to the development of community tourism in Agua Blanca, the community inhabitants have been shown various alternatives to generate additional income. I had no work before. Today I have 10 days of work in Agua Blanca, which helps me to maintain my family. 20 days to help manage the activities for the community and work for me, e.g. taking care of my animals, going to the farm, etc.

Thanks to VSocial, KATE, TourCert and BMZ, activities have been created that provide new opportunities for the local people. Community-based tourism has created a variety of activities: There are families who have set up accommodation facilities in their homes, other families prepare the food. So it is all these activities that have made the positive change in Agua Blanca possible".