Determinación de alternativas de aprovechamiento ecoturístico en el bosque Polylepis, Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo.

Abstract

The current research has as main objective to determine new alternatives for capitalizing on ecotourism development in the Polylepis forests and the impacts on the flora and fauna production reserve of Chimborazo; Making use of monitoring results and gathering additional information through secondary data sources, which it was subjected to an external verification process. A market study was conducted in order to take into account the alternative technical design. Also, the environmental conditions, the legal and administrative study and an in-depth economic and financial analysis, finally an evaluation method was executed in one of the implemented alternatives. Once the forest-related information was obtained effectively, a wide-ranging market research study was carried out, where 150 surveys were conducted, 125 at national level and 25 at international level, which allowed us to better understand the tourist profile perspective. The alternatives were 3 tour packages that include interesting activities such as trekking, mountain biking, visits to indigenous communities, horseback riding, camping, tour photography , bird-watching and flora-fauna habitats observation; the main appeal was the Polylepis forest with a second hierarchy, consequently other complementary attractions were taken into account like: the Condor Cocha lagoon, the snow-covered Chimborazo volcano and the Whymper and Carrel refuges on the mountaintops. These alternatives will be placed on the market by means of advertising media such as brochures, booklets, posters, business cards and additionally a website page, radio and television programs. Besides that, it will be managed through a tourism organization. The project is environmentally- friendly due to the fact that there are a higher number of positive impacts according to our investigation, in addition to being economically and financially viable, once obtained the financial indicators and ratios such as (NVP 16329,50), IRR of 26% and RBC of 1,98, Moreover the capital recovery period is in the third year. Subsequently, it was applied one of the alternatives called Trekking adventure Polylepis, where it was evidently demonstrated that most of tourists and visitors enjoyed the wild reserve tour.

Key words: ECOTOURISM DEVELOPMENT - TOURIST PACKAGES - SUSTAINABLE TOURISM.