Ecuador: More than Galápagos
By Andrew Princz/etn
Take a walk on the waterfront of the clean, unassuming Ecuadorian port-city of Guayaquil, and you may be surprised to see a collection of modern, high-class tourism infrastructure developments. The futuristic Malecón is a riverside promenade adorned with sculptures, suave restaurants, a conference facility, a museum and even an IMAX theatre.
This is just the kind of series of projects that tourism officials look to in making this country’s continental destinations more attractive to foreign visitors.
While the coastal city of Guayaquil may not be imbued with spectacular attributes to attract international tourists to its shores, it is the sheer care taken in developing the city that has put it on the map for conference-goers and international tourists.
The development of this kind of tourism infrastructure points to the seriousness of plans to attract some 1.7 million yearly visitors by the year 2010, almost double current levels.
“Cities like Guayaquil have done something very clever,” says Francisco Doudebés Egüez of the leading Ecuadorian tour operator, Metropolitan Touring. “They have positioned themselves at the doorway of what Ecuador has to offer, as opposed to encouraging tourists to come to Guayaquil for the sake of itself.”
Many visitors to Ecuador fly to Guayaquil before continuing to other local destinations – be it a short flight to the Galápagos Islands, the Andean capital of Quito, or other exotic continental destinations. Visitors can chose among one of the country’s many volcanoes, colonial haciendas, or the tropical Amazon region.
“Ecuador is a place where you can find many cultures, religions and peoples,” says twenty-year-old Marco Vinicio Chávez-Loor, a student at the Catholic University of Guayaquil, “The coast, the land, the mountains, the orient and the Galapágos Islands, all within a few hours.”
“In one day you can travel to one distinct place, then another day be on a mountainside or the coast.”
One continental destination favored is Cuenca, the country’s third largest city, which also boasts colonial architecture and typical litany of churches, and a heritage of being an intellectual center. Cuenca is also a centre for handicrafts, silversmiths and weavers, and a stones throw from Ecuador’s only extensive Inca ruins, Ingapirca.
Ecuador boasts, however, a hard to beat jewel. The pristine but ecologically fragile Galápagos Islands, indisputably the most illustrious tourism magnet for Ecuador. These idyllic islands 600 miles off of Ecuador’s coast were made famous by English naturalist Charles Darwin. His visit to these islands in 1835 inspired the earth-shattering ‘Origin of the Species’, a publication that altered man’s conception of the origins of life.
And these islands have since become a paradise for tourists, scientists and ecologists alike. Today, the Galápagos Island of San Cristóbal is a place to sleep among sea lions, to walk along pristine beaches, interrupted only by the curious gazes of a multitude of comely marine iguanas and exotic birds.
“Naturally the word Galápagos is what guides people to this country,” said Egüez.
Banking its future tourism potential on Galápagos, however, is indeed a losing proposition and one of the reasons for the country’s inland reach. Simply growth for the Galapagos Islands is physically and ecologically impossible. The island are also at the edge of their carrying capacity, absorbing some 120,000 tourists yearly, a figure that almost trebled in the past five years alone.
Earlier this year alarm bells rang leading Ecuador to focus of Ecuador's attention away from the Galápagos Islands and to redirect it towards continental destinations. The Galápagos Islands were the first place on the planet to be designated a World Heritage Site, now said to be "in danger" by the United Nations.
But growth has to develop from somewhere, if tourism official’s targets are to be reached. But Ecuador is getting there, with consistent increases in tourism numbers on a yearly basis. In 2005, Ecuador attracted 860 thousand tourists of the 18.1 million visitors to the South American continent, up 5.1 percent over the previous year.
Top countries of origin of incoming tourism, according to Ecuador Tourism Ministry figures, were Peru, the United States, Columbia, Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany.
An integral marketing plan of the Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism continues to be ambitious, targeting increasing those numbers significantly in the coming years. Targets include attracting 1.1 million incoming tourists this year, and boosting that figure to 1.7 million by 2010. Hence the strategy to encourage travelers to Ecuador to experience the capital Quito, parts of the Amazon rain forest, the highlands, its volcanoes, its culture, its Pacific coastline, its beaches or its gastronomy.
Take a polished advertising campaign dubbed ‘Ecuador – Life at its purest’, published in the US edition of National Geographic Magazine – in collaboration with the rainforest alliance – which sends a message of sustainable tourism, and depicts reasons to visit the diverse regions of Ecuador.
One image of the award-winning campaign depicts an indigenous man with the vast, impressive and expansive Andes mountain-range in the distance inviting tourists to discover the people and cultures of Ecuador, while another shows the pure and beautiful volcanic mountains of the Andes, while another illustrates the lush tropical Amazonian region. All for the purpose of showing that Ecuador is more than Galápagos.
Then there is the capital, Quito, situated high in the Andes mountain-range and nestled in between a host of snow-capped volcanos. Venture to the hill of El Panecillo in Ecuador’s capital Quito, over 2,800 meters above sea level and perched high above the capital with a spectacular view of the expansive city is Pim’s Restaurant, just meters from the 41-meter-tall monument of a Madonna assembled high above the hill.
This vista gives a birds-eye view of this city that since 1978 has been world heritage site. Here you will see architecture that could represent the best of the European heritage, as well as a unique cultural mix of the country’s indigenous roots.
While putting the four corners of the ecologically and culturally diverse Ecuador on the map for international tourists is a challenge, one local contemporary dance choreographer admits that the task is difficult, since this country has long been on the periphery of some of its neighbors.
“The problem is that the great capitals of culture in Latin America are Buenos Aires, Caracas, Bogota, Santiago… and even Lima,” said Kléver Viera, the director the contemporary dance company Grupo El Arrebato.
“Yet at the same time, this has resulted in dance remaining authentic to itself, and created by our culture, and what we are,” he concludes.
Perhaps, discovering the least exploited parts of Ecuador is finding something more pristine, natural and untouched. Being somewhat isolated sometimes has its advantages.
Andrew Princz is a freelance travel writer who has visited over forty countries and has consulted various governments on country tourism and culture awareness projects. Andrew has authored tour guides and travel stories, and publishes the travel and culture portal ontheglobe.com
September 14, 2007
Posted in: Ecuador