Amazon Interactive
The Ecotourism Game

Attract more tourists

The four of you agree that you do not want tourists staying in your homes more than once a week, so you decide to build a tourist compound. You leave your crops for several weeks to clear a patch of forest and build a simple tourist cabin. The other people of Pangayacu watch with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. The cabin is one kilometer (half a mile) from the center of Pangayacu. A few tourists are disappointed that they can't stay with a Quichua family, but most are satisfied. Several tourist groups visit Pangayacu every week now, staying for two to four days. They enjoy seeing the rainforest and learning about Quichua culture, such as the blowguns which were once used for hunting.

The money coming in has paid off all the debts you acquired to buy the outboard motor for the canoe, the cabin furnishings, and other expenses.

Now that the rest of the people of Pangayacu see how much money tourists bring, they are more interested in the ecotourism project. At the next community meeting, Mariano suggests making the project communal, so everyone works and benefits from it. Pedro and Fernando want nothing of this, saying they built the tourism business up and deserve to benefit from it most. Agustin, however, would like to include the rest of the community. He says it is the only way the project will work in the long run.

You don't work much in the fields nowadays, and have even let some plantations become overgrown with secondary forest.

Income from tourism comes in steadily, and you no longer need to sell crops in the market.

What do you think?

Keep the project in the hands of the small group
Open the project to the entire community