Sustainable Tourism Law

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM: THE COSTA RICA CASE 673 The following initiatives are also implemented: – The Costa Rican Consensus: exchange of public debt for investment in education and the environment. – The TFCA initiative (“Tropical Forest Conservation Act”): exchange of public foreign debt for the conservation of nature. – Costa Rica Forever: donations to create a trust for the maintenance ad perpetum of our protected areas. – The Coalition of Rain Forest Countries (led by Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea): they seek to prevent and mitigate climate change within the framework of combating poverty and sustainable development strategies. – United Nations Partnership for Sustainable Tourism Thanks to all these initiatives and measures, Costa Rica is one of the countries which has managed to reverse deforestation, being now one of the countries with more trees per capita in the world. In parallel, since 1997, the Costa Rican Tourism Institute created the Tourism Sustainability Certification, a pioneering program that promotes the sustainability of operations as a fundamental part of tourism companies and, as such, has contributed substantially to the positioning of the country as a sustainable tourist destination. In this regard, collaborators were trained to implement the process of induction, accompaniment, evaluation, analysis of the evidence, technical criteria preparation and other needs involved in the entire certification process. The National Accreditation Commission of the CST was also created, being in charge of granting the certification according to the level of compliance of the actions or programmes that lead the company to achieve sustainability in its operation. Internationally, other destinations have found an interesting niche in ecotourism. Given the popularity of sustainability certifications or seals, these countries apply different certification structures that they can use to promote themselves as sustainable destinations. Costa Rica maintains its leadership as the first country to establish strict sustainability requirements and create the certification process, however, nowadays it’s difficult for international markets to distinguish the truly sustainable destinations from those which practice a “green makeup” or “green” wash”. The CST, besides being a tool to achieve sustainable businesses, must become a marketing weapon that allows the companies that hold it to receive a promotional benefit in both domestic and international markets.