Community-based ecotourism to meet the new tourist's expectations: an exploratory study

 
Case 5: The Taquile island in Peru 
(Mitchell and Reid, 2001) 
Taquile Island is a small island located on Lake Titicaca in the southeast of Peru, about 25 
kilometers from Punto, the regional capital. The population of Taquile is mainly Queshua-
speaking and amounts to 1,850 people. The area and the island are famous for their natural 
beauty but also because the Lake Titicaca is one of the highest navigable lakes in the world. 
Taquileños are also known for their globally unique weavings, coming from a tradition and an 
ancestral savoir-faire. Handcraft is a major component of the Taquileño lifestyle. Taquileños 
have control over every stage of the manufacturing process and marketing of their craft industry. 
The island integrates a traditional and modern political and administrative system, which ensures 
democratic governance as well as transparent and consensual decision-making over activities that 
concern the whole population, including tourism. Initially, people from the island were reluctant 
toward tourism development. When tourism benefits became increasingly evident in 
collaboration with the determination and efforts by an ex-governor (the traditional highest-
ranking authority on the island) and expert weaver Francisco Huatta Huatta, a Belgian priest and 
a former Peace Corps volunteer, tourism became fully integrated to the traditional way of life. 
Furthermore, it is the main means of livelihood. In 1998, 98% of the adults were directly 
employed in the tourism industry. Tourists arrive at the village, after a boat trip, only by foot. 
They are welcomed by a reception committee and are assigned accommodation with a local 
family in an adobe hut. Restaurants in which they can eat are also owned and managed by groups 
of families. Taquileños control their whole touristic offer: entrance fee collection, handcraft, local 
accommodation, catering. Generally, local ownership of the industry is high except for guide and 
boat transportation, which are increasingly managed by private operators (sailboat cooperatives 
owned by Taquileños families are diminishing). With the development of the tourism industry 
and globalization, certain individualism spread in the community. Thereby some artisans or 
families earned more than others thanks to contracts or agreements made with foreigners. 
Furthermore, leakages of high revenue are occurring in many tourism services. But, on a general 
level, there is a community-based control on decision-making and on tourism management and 
revenues are fairly distributed among the local population. 

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