Turismo y sustentabilidad: una propuesta para monitorear la sustentabilidad de la actividad turística en las islas Galápagos.

Abstract

The Galapagos Islands have the tourism as a major source of income that grows rapidly receiving 280.000 tourists per year, which has generated negative impacts on the environment and put at risk the conservation of the fragile island ecosystem. In this context, this research is based on a proposal development that allowed measure the sustainability degree of the tourist activity in Galapagos, providing a single and dimensional value, from the theory it was concluded that tourism sustainability constitutes an undefined concept, for which various approaches have been made to understand it, for its measurement there are a variety of procedures, however, the aggregative approach proved reliable in order to obtain a global measure of sustainability , for the development of the proposal 80 indicators were selected: 25 environmental, 29 economic, 10 sociocultural, 10 political and 6 technological, Cronbach's alpha coefficient values were calculated for each of the dimensions that indicated that the set of selected indicators presents a high internal consistency; that is, they measure the concept by which they were chosen. Through the use of multicriteria analysis technique of programming by goals, the Galapagos Sustainability Index was identified, which is below the desired values, the smallest distance is registered for the political dimension, while environmental issues register greater distance.This situation is due to the accelerated growth of tourism that has caused greater migratory flows, pressure on natural resources and the permanent danger that exotic species can be introduced and put at risk the conservation of the Galapagos ecosystems. Therefore, the authorities are urged to establish policies and actions that minimize the impacts and guarantee sustainability for the future.