UAKARI - Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá

UAKARI, v. 8, n. 2 , p. 95 - 114, 2012. Special Issue: Sustainable Tourism.INTRODUCTIONIn recent decades, community-based tourism (CBT)has been defended as one of the ways to developtourist activities in a responsible manner, reconcilingthe conservation of natural resources with the socioeconomicdevelopment of the destinations. Theterm is used widely in literature ,1, 2 and generallycovers initiatives that promote an alternative modelto conventional tourism, where the central concernwith involving the communities is the mainstay ofthe activity itself.Starting in the ’90s, innumerable projects of thisnature emerged which, in the majority of cases,were supported by the not-for-profit sector andrun by donations from cooperation agencies.However, throughout this period, many studiesidentified problems that were apparently commonto the majority of these initiatives, including:lack of monitoring and lack of quantification ofreal benefits for the communities (GOODWIN;SANTILI, 2009); lack of the most appropriate focusbased on demand and insertion into the localtourism production chain (Epler Wood 1998); lackof a business plan and a clear view of potentialthreats for this kind of activity (CBI, 2009).Therefore, it is not surprising that Mitchell andMuckosy (2008) have identified an averageoccupancy rate of only 5% for communityestablishments. Mielke (2011), upon evaluatingthe activities of CBT in Brazil 3 , also foundproblems with market access and identified a lackof monitoring systems in these enterprises, makingthe results difficult to control and evaluate. In theMamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve inthe Brazilian Amazon, the Uakari Floating Lodgeis one of the pioneering projects of this genre inBrazil. The enterprise has been in full 4 operationsince 2002 and utilizes a model of sharedmanagement between the Mamirauá Institutefor Sustainable Development (MISD) and thecommunities in the Mamirauá Reserve.In order to support the decision to invest in theUakari Floating Lodge, a business plan wasdeveloped, as well as a strategy for introducingthe enterprise into the market. Moreover,indicators were pre-established to monitor thesocio-economic, environmental, and marketperformance of the initiative over the years.However, the fact that the enterprise took theseimportant pre-steps does not mean that the entirebusiness would not face mishaps. Initiatives likethe Uakari Floating Lodge – located in remoteareas and with a differentiated managementmodel - are sensitive to risk factors, both external 5and internal. Among the most significant externalfactors that the enterprise lived through were theinterruption in flight access to the municipalityand exchange rate fluctuations. The problemof access – which occurred during a time ofsignificant growth for the enterprise – was caused1A form of tourism that local communities have substantialinvolvement in and control over. Ecotourism’s development andmanagement, and a major proportion of the benefits remain withinthe community (DENMAN, 2001).2Tourism initiatives that are owned by one or more communities, orrun as a joint venture with the private sector with equitable communityparticipation, as a means of using natural resources in a sustainablemanner to improve their standard of living in an economic and viableway (Department of Tourism Botswana)3Those who received support from the Ministério do Turismo(Tourism Ministry) through the support bid for CBT.4From 1999 to 2001, the enterprise was functioning as a ‘softopening’, responding to spontaneous demand.5External factors usually affect demand, and as such, the enterprisedoes not have the capacity to intervene.97