Tranquilo Bay eco adventure lodge – Bocas Adventure
We plan to create a facility adjacent to Bastimentos National Marine Park (BNMP) that provides sustainable public access to the area’s parks and reserves. Bocas del Toro, Panama (BDT) is an ecologically sensitive area. Estimates show 100,000 travelers visit BDT each year. Currently, there are no facilities providing sustainable public access to the area’s parks and reserves. Bocas Adventure (BA), our facility, will immerse visitors in our community’s local and natural history, culture, ecology, flora and fauna. We will use sustainable activities such as arts, hiking, kayaking, research, snorkeling and wildlife viewing as educational and cultural exchange tools to enlighten visitors ...
About You
Contact Information
Title
Mr.
First name
James
Last name
Kimball
Your job title
President
Name of your organization
Tranquilo Bay, Inc.
Organization type
Business
Annual budget/currency
$300,000
Mailing address
1722 Scenic Shore, Kingwood, TX
Telephone number
(507) 380 0721 Panama (713) 589-6952 USA
Postal/Zip Code
77345
Country
United States
Website
Email address
Alternative email address
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
Macca Bite
City
Isla Bastimentos
State/Province
Bocas del Toro
Postal/Zip Code
1234
Country
Panama
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , Quality of benefit to residents for the destination , Quality of tourism management by destination leadership , Quality of stewardship of the destination.
Organization size
Small (1 to 100 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Tourism-related business
Year innovation began
1999
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
Nature, Adventure, General destination stewardship/management.
Name Your Project
Tranquilo Bay eco adventure lodge – Bocas Adventure
Describe Your Idea
We plan to create a facility adjacent to Bastimentos National Marine Park (BNMP) that provides sustainable public access to the area’s parks and reserves. Bocas del Toro, Panama (BDT) is an ecologically sensitive area. Estimates show 100,000 travelers visit BDT each year. Currently, there are no facilities providing sustainable public access to the area’s parks and reserves. Bocas Adventure (BA), our facility, will immerse visitors in our community’s local and natural history, culture, ecology, flora and fauna. We will use sustainable activities such as arts, hiking, kayaking, research, snorkeling and wildlife viewing as educational and cultural exchange tools to enlighten visitors ...
IDB/Fomin
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Deseo postularme.
Si perteneces a un pais de Latinoamerica y el Caribe tienes la oportunidad de presentar tu iniciativa para acceder a fondos para innovaciones en turismo sostenible del BID/FOMIN (para mayor informacion leer la seccion sobre la oportunidad BID/FOMIN en la pagina principal del Desafio).
Consumidores (viajeros), Mayoristas, Agentes detallistas, Operadores de Turismo, Prestatarios de servicios turísticos, Prestatarios de servicios no turísticos (proveedores), Grupos comunitarios autóctonos, Atractivos naturales y culturales.
Indica cuales de estas tematicas cubre tu innovacion (elige todas aquellas opciones que apliquen)
Planificación y Gestión de destinos, Innovación y diversificación en el desarrollo de productos turísticos, Profesionalización, buenas prácticas y certificación de servicios turísticos sostenibles, Estrategias y herramientas innovadoras para la promoción y puesta en mercado de destinos y productos en turismo sostenible y geoturismo..
Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Creation of a sustainable business cluster that provides a venue, environment, employment, services, and education to enhance the archipelago’s resources.
Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.
We plan to create a facility adjacent to Bastimentos National Marine Park (BNMP) that provides sustainable public access to the area’s parks and reserves. Bocas del Toro, Panama (BDT) is an ecologically sensitive area. Estimates show 100,000 travelers visit BDT each year. Currently, there are no facilities providing sustainable public access to the area’s parks and reserves. Bocas Adventure (BA), our facility, will immerse visitors in our community’s local and natural history, culture, ecology, flora and fauna. We will use sustainable activities such as arts, hiking, kayaking, research, snorkeling and wildlife viewing as educational and cultural exchange tools to enlighten visitors and provide sustainable employment to the community. BA gives the entire demographic spectrum visiting BDT (from backpackers to wealthy travelers) access to the extreme biodiversity found within and adjacent to BNMP.
Tranquilo Bay will manage the infrastructure for BA and will also provide power to Macca Bite peninsula and Crawl Caye. This self-sustainable cluster of businesses will provide jobs, create services, education, and training aimed at the protection and enhancement of our natural resources and community. We hope to build a successful working model, which can be replicated in other adjoining communities.
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
We have learned during our time in BDT that the best way to sustain the area is to create jobs protecting the area’s natural resources. For example, our community was having problems with land and resource theft. We worked with the community to create a 500-acre reserve with a management plan to stop these problems.
Organized job training is nonexistent in our community. Our business cluster will provide long and short-term employment designed to take advantage of the current skill set of our local community and provide the education, training, and guidance necessary to prepare members of the community for work as naturalist guides, project managers and other employment opportunities.
BA is introducing day tour and camping facilities adjacent to and within BNMP. We can do this due to Tranquilo Bay’s location and resources, which permit us to provide infrastructure, naturalist guides, management, and access to travelers not otherwise available.
We are working with ANAM, the Panamanian environmental authority, to acquire a concession for trails and observation areas within BNMP.
BA in conjunction with our existing businesses provide the critical mass necessary for a successful sustainable tourism cluster that shall hopefully spawn other complimentary services and jobs locally.
Impact
Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
Tranquilo Bay is a viable business. We created a high-end lodging market in the area, consisting of affluent visitors in search of an experience that immerses them in the environment, natural history, customs, culture, heritage and natural wonders of the area.
We believe we have both sustained and enhanced the community in the following areas:
• increase in dollars locally collected per visitor,
• additional and better quality employment opportunities,
• increased number of annual visitors,
• additional sustainable tour options,
• awareness of the area via international media,
• ongoing community assistance,
• law enforcement via neighborhood watch and government activism
• increased size of protected areas,
• increased visits to BNMP,
• hosted scientific research,
• increased number of businesses that market BDT as a destination,
• supported the election of local, Alfredo Jimenez, as President of ADESBO
• developed local business partnerships.
Our business cluster is tourism based. It is because of this business that we have been able to both sustain and enhance our community as described above. As part of our business, we have developed tours with indigenous communities that support the community financially and tread lightly on the natural resources, while providing sustainable employment.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
We assisted the Salt Creek indigenous community to establish a 500-acre reserve (and management plan) adjacent to BNMP. We work with those on our peninsula and Crawl Caye enforcing laws as part of a neighborhood watch. We display and sell the artwork of local artisans to our guests. We provide long-term employment as an alternative to non-sustainable jobs. The community is starting to understand how to benefit economically from the natural resources without expending the same resource. Our partnership with Luis Smith for BA will help make that project successful and create new relationships within our extended community.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Visitors are thrilled when they see that you give a project 100% of yourself. We do this. We are well versed in local history, natural history, culture, flora and fauna and ecology of our area. The geographic isolation of our community allows us to immerse tourists in all that is Panama. Visitors may not come here to learn about how the rise of the isthmus forever changed Earth, the Ngobe’s role in the banana republic or how many culinary delights can be made with Pixbae, nevertheless, they all leave a part of themselves and take away more than they expected.
Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.
We practice what we preach. It is our business culture. Our employees have adopted the same practices. These practices are filtering out into the community. We take visitors into the communities and bridge the gap, offering a portal to each side, the visitors and the indigenous community, to see deeper into the other. This isn’t a show. It is a real experience. Our guests experience a different way of life. We hope that they expect more out of their future providers. Through our work with local NGOs, governmental authorities and the community, we protect the local environment, heritage and culture.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
Tranquilo Bay is privately financed. Revenue for 2008 was close to $300,000. Tranquilo Bay has the rights to 168 acres of rainforest. Budget to fully implement BA is $400,000 (this does not include the cost of the land as we have the rights to such land). We expect BA’s revenue to be $200,000 per year.
We can contribute one half of the funds needed to implement BA in the form of land, our personal labor associated with the project, as well as actual funds toward the project.
We have ten full time employees during the green season and an additional five employees during high season. We average five part time employees at this time. We occasionally have interns working on a volunteer basis. We expect these numbers more than double with the implementation of BA.
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
Tranquilo Bay is both financially and organizationally sustainable. BA is capital intensive to complete, however once complete the ongoing costs are covered by revenue generated.
There is a demand for our innovations now. Tourists want to explore the rainforest, culture and abundant nature within BTD. As of now, these types of tours exist in very limited numbers.
Our neighbors have asked us to provide them with power and assistance with their businesses. Once we provide them with power, they will use it and quit using their current form of power generation. We assist them in business frequently in many ways.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
The main barrier we have in implementing our projects is capital. Our businesses are generating enough income to support themselves in this economy, but they are not producing enough to grow additional businesses. We will not jeopardize our projects through financing, therefore capital is accumulated slowly, through hard work.
Managing our businesses is not a problem. Our basic business is solid which gives us the freedom to expand into other areas. However, finding locals with the necessary skills and experience to manage specific projects independently is a challenge.
A barrier to replicating our business cluster is equal application of the law. Laws are applied inconsistently. We spend a large amount of time policing our community for different government agencies as these agencies do not have the resources to do so.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
Our plan is to develop BA on a small scale until we can obtain financing to complete it or generate enough income from our various businesses to finance it on our own. We will work with tour operators, APTSO and BSTA and other organizations to raise awareness. We hope the model will spread as we share our experience with other communities. We would like to mentor other similar projects here in Panama in order to expand the country’s sustainable tourist products.
The Story
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Jim Kimball, Renee Kimball and Jay Viola are owners and operators of Tranquilo Bay eco adventure lodge. Jim and Jay built Tranquilo Bay from the ground up. Luis Smith is the owner of Crawl Caye restaurant and our partner in BA. Both Crawl Caye and Tranquilo Bay have garnered positive international media attention. Luis, Jim and Jay all work with the local government offices of ANAM, ARAP and ATP. Jay works with the Salt Creek Ngobe Bugle community and the municipal representantes. Renee works with APTSO (Sustainable Tourism Association of Panama) and is President of BSTA (Bocas Sustainable Tourism Alliance.)
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
BDT is a very special place. It is our home now - we live here with our families alongside Panamanians and indigenous communities. We are working to protect it, provide opportunities for local people, create a sustainable model for modern businesses in the area, and share the natural wonders of the archipelago with visitors. In 10 years we have encountered some negative impacts as a direct result of tourism: a decline in shellfish population, deforestation, non-sustainable development, population increase and displacement of locals. Thus far there has been limited sustainable employment opportunities created for the local community. Together we have the education, experience, resources, motivation and desire to continue developing a model project, which we hope will resonate outward to surrounding communities.
We want all travelers to have the opportunity to experience natural adventure here in BDT. Extreme biodiversity of flora and fauna, tropical rainforest, primary growth mangrove forest, incredible coral reef, the Caribbean Sea, and indigenous Ngobe Bugle communities are all included within and adjacent to BNMP. Very few of the tours currently available permit travelers to contribute to BDT’s community. BA will be open to the public and permit only an appropriate carrying capacity each day.
There are many benefits to the community by opening BA as a day tour and overnight camping facility. We are providing employment opportunities to many local people as guides and maintenance workers who may not otherwise have employment and offering visitors to BTD sustainable access to BNMP. Our product permits each of the different tourism stakeholders to participate and profit from this endeavor in an appropriate manner. Hotels within the archipelago may recommend to their guests an opportunity to explore BTD in a way that is limitedly available through other tour options. Local boatmen will also have an appealing and sustainable tour to sell to tourists traveling through BDT. We welcome the scientific community to study the flora, fauna and wildlife within the archipelago through our facilities at BA. National and international operators receive a tool to help them sell more packages in BDT while visitors get a better look into the eyes of BDT.
Many of our neighbors have come to us asking us to provide them with electricity. At the same time we build the infrastructure for BA, we will put in the infrastructure to provide Macca Bite and Crawl Caye with power. By providing our community with power, we reduce the number of individual generators in use; make power generation in this area more responsible and more efficient while reducing both noise pollution and carbon emissions.
Our business cluster is a vehicle for partnership between residents and travelers. Tranquilo Bay’s business connections and resources give the facilities a jumpstart that they would not receive in any other physical location. We believe our projects have the potential to create multiple synergistic services by creating increased efficiency, such as a local portal for the transfer of people and goods.
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
On all of the tours offered by BA, both a naturalist guide and an indigenous wildlife guide accompany tourists. Tourists learn simultaneously about the wildlife and local culture. The indigenous guides are skilled at locating many species of flora and fauna in the rainforest and have a sharp eye for spotting wildlife. The Ngobe have a different perspective from the naturalist guide and utilize many plants and animals from the jungle for their daily lives. The dichotomy of these different perspectives will inform visitors and initiate new ideas of sustainable methods for all involved in the exchange.
Night monkeys are the western hemispheres only nocturnal monkey. Isla Bastimentos, being isolated and at the northern boundary of this species range, provides a unique environment for research of night monkeys in their habitat.
Most of the mammals in the rainforest are nocturnal, and Isla Bastimentos has a vibrant nightlife if you know where to look for it. Aside from volunteering with a sea turtle program, BDT has no available nocturnal tours to experience the jungle when it is truly alive. Our camping facility will put visitors right in the middle of these nighttime wonders with as little a footprint as possible.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
Partnerships with the government of Panama, particularly ANAM (Environmental Authority), will be instrumental in attaining access to each of the national parks for responsible geotourism projects.
Utilize our existing relationships with domestic and international agents and operators who prefer to promote geotourism products.
Working with national and international conservation, non-governmental and research organizations to provide training and information regarding best practices, English, health and safety, wildlife, etc. will help to educate our employees and ultimately our visitors in areas such as sustainable tourism, cultural exchange and advanced first aid. These efforts need to be expanded to the entire community.
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