Fostering Sustainable Tourism Development in Latin America
The tourism industry in Latin America represents approximately 8.5 percent of regional GDP and is expected to grow in future years. Competition among countries to gain a greater number of international visitors is also on the rise.
While economic growth and sustainability are not mutually exclusive, the burgeoning tourism industry in Latin America raises questions about how countries can best manage their natural resources and patrimony. This is especially important for the Latin American region, which holds more than half of the world’s biodiversity.
How can the goals of sustainability—involving land use, impact on watersheds and native flora and fauna, pollution, waste removal, and improvement of infrastructure—become part of a strategy that integrates the goals of tourism development with the protection of vulnerable ecosystems and enhances both local and national economic development?
Please join us on Thursday, March 21 at 9:00 a.m. at the Wilson Center to discuss these issues with some of the leading voices on sustainable tourism development and its links to conservation.
Opening Remarks
Anders Beal
Program Assistant, Latin American Program
Woodrow Wilson Center
Speakers
Hernán Mladinic
Vidanta-Wilson Fellow
Wilson Center
Donald Leadbetter
Tourism Program Manager
U.S. National Park Service
Santiago Giraldo
Executive Director
ProSierra
Carlos Viquez
Agriculture & Biodiversity Leader
Osa Conservation
Moderator
The Honorable Anne Slaughter Andrew
Former U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica
The Wilson Center's Latin American Program wishes to acknowledge the generous support of the Vidanta Foundation for this initiative.
Image: Rodrigo Soldon, Flickr.
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Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more