Rosa María Chávez Dagostino

Sustainable Tourism: Whale Watching Footprint in the Bahía de Banderas, México

ABSTRACT Cornejo-Ortega, J.L.; Chávez-Dagostino, R.M., and Massam, B.H., 2013. Sustainable tourism: whale watching footprint in the Bahía de Banderas, México. The discussion about nonsustainable ecological systems is in vogue. The debate has led to the biophysical analysis of “human-nature” relationships. This analysis is an important way to determine human impacts on the Earth, based on the colonization of nature and social activities that consider matter and energy flows through appropriation, transformation, distribution, consumption, and excretion. Tourism has appropriated and characterized various types of ecosystems that represent the use of a finite set of spatially distributed resources. The observation of marine mammals, such as whales, in natural protected areas attracts many tourists each year, and this activity indirectly generates carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. This carbon emission, which is accompanied by the increased scale of tourism, may hamper global conservation goals. We describe the use of the Ecological Footprint tool as a sustainability indicator of humpback whale–watching activity in Bahía de Banderas, Marietas Islands National Park, in Nayarit, México, to examine the global impact of this tourist activity on ecosystems. Calculations are based on the Ecological Footprint method using the consumption/productivity ratio—converting costs of goods and services into consumption of resource inputs and then translating these to surface units. The findings show that the mean whale-watching footprint in the study area is 46.85 ha. This figure is low when compared to other estimated footprints of ecotourism activities in the world. The discussion examines how the results of this type of analysis can be used to improve tourism planning with a view to promoting sustainability.

Patrimonio, turismo y desarrollo sustentable: caso costa de Jalisco

La costa de Jalisco constituye un factor determinante que incide en el desarrollo regional, no obstante, presenta un estado de desintegracion. Esta comprendida por cinco municipios que conforman el corredor turistico llamado Costa Alegre, donde coexisten niveles desde extrema pobreza hasta desarrollados. Se planteo la necesidad de realizar un inventario de recursos naturales, culturales y productivos en la region costa de Jalisco, con la finalidad de incluirlos en un uso turistico diferente al modelo que presiona bipolarmente esta region, y promover a la vez la integracion de este corredor a traves de valores distintos: naturaleza, cultura y produccion. Se hace enfasis en la importancia y la metodologia empleada. Asimismo, se discute la integracion de la actividad turistica a otras actividades economicas, como eje vertebrador para el desarrollo local, que coadyuve en el bienestar social y calidad de vida.

Huella ecológica y turismo sustentable

Los investigadores en el area de turismo y disenadores de politicas relacionadas con la actividad han llegado tarde al debate sobre el desarrollo sustentable. El analisis de la huella ecologica, ligado a la actividad turistica, en el marco del enfoque estricto o �fuerte� del turismo sustentable puede permitir construir un indicador de sustentabilidad para productos turisticos en distintos niveles de agregacion, la huella individual de un producto, de determinado tipo de turistas o de un centro turistico completo. Podria dar una nueva vision sobre las demandas ambientales de la actividad turistica, de forma anticipada o retrospectiva y establecer que tan sustentable es el turismo alternativo, entre otras.

Experiential and Learning Desires of Whale Watching Guides Versus Tourists in Bahía de Banderas, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

ABSTRACT Whales are popular tourism attractions in many coastal areas of the world. Although not without disagreement, vessel-based whale viewing is widely considered to be a form of ecotourism, in which experiential and learning opportunities exist to engender pro-environmental awareness and behavior. Guides are considered to play an important interpretive role in this respect, although there is little research that explores what guides themselves desire to impart to their passengers. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we compared what whale watching guides in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (n = 9) desire their passengers experience and learn to that reported by the whale watchers themselves (n = 283). Guides placed a higher importance on education, while whale watchers indicated experiential elements such as viewing whales close up and spectacular behaviors. Furthermore, the guides held a strong view that emotional feelings of respect and love for whales were important for whale watchers to experience and learn about marine conservation.