Scenario planning for tourism management: a participatory and system dynamics model applied to the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a decision-support system based on a system dynamics model designed to examine tourism management in the Galapagos Islands. A participatory approach was used to integrate the views of multiple stakeholders in the Galapagos Islands and to build an understandable, graphical representation of the impacts of tourism and residential population growth. Each subsystem is examined through hypotheses involving three scenarios of tourism growth that are associated with different residential population expansions. A number of integrative and linked social-ecological effects in our model have been shown to severely shock the natural environment of the Galapagos and saturate the capacity of several socio-economic subsystems. Major concerns of the expanding human dimension in the Galapagos are represented by (1) the growing number of introduced species that threaten the Islands’ unique natural environment, and (2) the rapid saturation of the Galapagos National Park's tourism reception capacity. The model relies upon real data to specify rules, relationships, and rates of exchange that are derived through statistical functions and/or functions specified in theory or practice. The presented decision-support system is a quantitative scenario-planning tool that can be used by policy-makers to achieve an enhanced understanding of the Galapagos Islands as a coupled human–natural system.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism and residential population
• participatory and system dynamics models
• scenario planning
• tourism destination management
• Galapagos Islands
• Ecuador

Acknowledgments

This research was possible thanks to the assistance and cooperation of the Galapagos National Park, World Wildlife Fund, and the Galapagos Science Center, a collaborative partnership between the Universdiad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. We are very thankful to Arturo Izurieta, Veronica Toral, Eliecer Cruz, Juan García, and Carlos Valle for their insights and feedback at initial stages of model development. Methods, models, findings, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Galapagos National Park, Ecuadorian Government, or the World Wildlife Fund.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Data from the Electric Enterprise of Galapagos Elecgalapagos, Empresa Electrica Provincia Galapagos.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesco Pizzitutti

Francesco Pizzitutti has a Phd in Biophysics at the University “La Sapienza of Rome”, and he is a complex systems models designer with special emphasis in agent-based and systems dynamics models, at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and at the Duke University Institute of Global Health.

Stephen J. Walsh

Stephen J. Walsh is the Director of the UNC Center for Galapagos Studies; Co-Director of the UNC-USFQ Galapagos Science Center, San Cristobal Island, Ecuador; Professor at the Department of Geography and Fellow of the Carolina Population Center, USA. More details about him can be found at his home page at the Center for Galapagos Studies: http://galapagos.unc.edu/People/uncprofiles/walsh.

Ronald R. Rindfuss

Ronald R. Rindfuss is a research professor of sociology and Carolina Population Center Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University. He currently chairs NIH's Social Science and Population Studies Study Section, ZRG1 SSPS-H 09 and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Galapagos Science Center, UNC.

Reck Gunter

Reck Gunter is the Director of the institute of Applied Ecology of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, and a member of the advisory board of the Galapagos Science Center, UNC, and professor de biologia at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

Diego Quiroga

Diego Quiroga obtained his PhD degree in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, he is Vice-president of Research in the San Francisco de Quito University and Co-director of the Galapagos Academic Institute of Arts and Sciences (GAIAS). Diego has done research on topics that range from biodiversity vulnerability to religion and traditional medicine.

Rebecca Tippett

Rebecca Tippett is the Director of Carolina Demography at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She works with state and local government agencies, businesses, and non-profits to help decision-makers understand and anticipate the impacts of population change.

Carlos F. Mena

Carlos F. Mena is the Director of the Geography Institute of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Co-Director of the Galapagos Science Center. He is Professor of the Galapagos Institute for the Arts & Sciences and Professor of the College of Biological and Life Sciences.