Playing an active role within the society Euforia has developed a series of projects that seek to involve other operations in striving to fuse a cultural preservation and ethical understanding within developing new tourism projects in remote areas.

Written by J. Andres Vargas

The tourism business has been for decades and will be for decades to come one of the major industries worldwide, that is of course if both developed and flourishing projects comply with a series of norms and regulations seeking to go hand in hand not only with the preservation and wellbeing of the environment but with the conservation of cultural identity amidst countries and communities, as well as allowing the participation in lead roles of community development associations and not imposing foreign logistic proposals.

It’s of utmost importance that communities start taking lead roles in presenting development guidelines for new projects to follow. For such a step to be taken in an effective way, the involvement not only of nongovernmental organizations but government entities is crucial to support these efforts.

We have started the development of a project striving to create awareness on the fact that Responsible Tourism Development is not a utopian dream. Seeking to create awareness not only in the positive aspects but also in a possible long term negative side of tourism (if not properly developed), we present tourism as an alternative activity.

This program looks to educate local communities as well as to learn from their participation, on the benefits of equitable tourism as a complimentary activity to their day to day activities, not as a substitute activity that would replace their ways of living, hence a short/mid-term cultural loss.We believe there’s a great deal of enthusiasm from communities as well as organizations such as The Nature Conservancy (who has kindly shown their support) that have shown interest to partake on a project that could mean a better future for communities and tourism. The only downside to the Responsible Tourism Development project would be not to participate on such an opportunity.

We encourage tour operators, travel agencies, NGOs, tourism bureaus, industries in general, individuals, communities, media and travelers from all around the globe to give thought to the future of traveling and learning from foreign cultures. Where’s the adventure in traveling to a country where you hear, see and eat your own culture? Following cultural and environmentally friendly operations is neither a budget consuming decision, nor is it a time and resources obstacle for operations around the world.

All the very best,

J. Andrés Vargas
Euforia Expeditions – Costa Rica