In an age of record population figures and rampant environmental degradation Suriname enjoys an enviable situation. Suriname has the highest percentage of rainforest cover and one of the lowest population densities of any nation on Earth. Yet still, Suriname needs to grow its economy and increase the standard of living of its people. Bauxite mining and processing dominates the economy and generates around 75% of foreign exchange earnings. This is a precarious economic base, especially when the long-term future of aluminum appears weak. There is a pressing need to diversify the economy and to do so in a sustainable manner. Suriname’s unique cultural and natural assets are potentially powerful attractions that could provide the basis for sustainable specialty tourism development.

Specialty tourism provides the opportunity to conserve Suriname’s natural and cultural resources while at the same time providing an important engine for economic growth and development. Tourism is the largest industry in the world. International travel generated $425 billion in spending and accounted for 200 million jobs worldwide in 1997. It is estimated that nature tourism accounts for 7% of this expenditure and this segment of the market is growing more than twice as fast as the industry as a whole.

Suriname does not have the beach resources to make it a mass-market destination like many of her Caribbean neighbors. Suriname does however, have tremendous specialty tourism potential based on a number of world-class tourism resources - including the highest percentage of rainforest cover on earth, vast tracts of wilderness, numerous large pristine river systems, extremely productive coastal ecosystems and unique cultural and historic attractions. The country’s ecosystems provide habitat for a number of species that provide specialty tourism attractions, including the Cock-of-the-Rock, the flagship species of the Guiana avifauna. Suriname contains some of the best sea turtle nesting beaches in the world and is one of the best places to view giant river otters, black caiman, tapir, and harpy eagles. The country’s unusual mix of African, Asian, European and native Amerindian cultures (especially the unique Maroon cultures of the interior) contribute to Suriname’s enormous tourism potential. These resources - the historic character and relative safety of the capital, Paramaribo, widely spoken English and close proximity to important nature and cultural tourism markets in North America and Europe - offer significant opportunities for Suriname to develop specialty markets of considerable value.

The tourism industry is currently limited by Suriname’s lack of image among international travelers; a rigid bureaucracy that has discouraged airlines, international tour companies, and travelers - and the resulting difficult and expensive air access; an inexperienced and immature inbound industry and a shortage of appropriate facilities and infrastructure.

The current value of tourism revenue in Suriname is difficult to ascertain but estimates for 1997 range from $17 to 42 million - or 3% to 8% of foreign exchange earnings. More than 3/4 of international air arrivals are Dutch citizens — virtually all of them with historic/familial ties to Suriname. Long stays but very low expenditure levels characterize their visits. True tourists, who chose Suriname as a destination among other potential destinations and come primarily for a holiday, probably number no more than a 3,000 annually.

Surinameers have long recognized the potential of their country as a tourism destination. As early as the 1970’s, Suriname was one of the first countries in the Americas to develop rainforest tourism. But after a number of years of significant political unrest in the1980s, when their early market was lost, Suriname today finds itself far behind in a very competitive tourism market. Yet, the private sector is optimistic about tourism - in the past five years, investment in hotels in Paramaribo has more than doubled the number of beds to over 2000. Over 300 new beds have been developed in the interior over the same period. But to date, there has been little return from this investment. This year, occupancy rates at the facilities in the interior are in the range of 5%; many Paramaribo hotels average only 30%. Design, management and marketing do not meet international standards and there is a growing loss of enthusiasm as the industry stagnates.

The Government of Suriname is actively supporting tourism development. The Suriname Tourism Development Plan, funded by the EU, was finalized in 1998 and provides an important foundation for the sector’s development. Earlier this year, when Suriname hosted the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s Annual Sustainable Tourism Conference in Paramaribo, the tourism industry was primed to move forward. Since then the EU returned the proposed follow-on "Tourism Development Implementation Program" for a redesign and the enthusiasm of the spring has faded. There remains a significant gap between the stated "Action Plan" and a real capacity to implement on the ground. Even if it is eventually approved, this EU program is likely to focus at the policy and regulatory level and its impact on tourism product development will be limited.

In 1998 Suriname created the Central Suriname Nature Reserve (CSNR), which protects an immense expanse of Amazonian rainforest on the Guyana Shield. It’s more than four million acres of pristine tropical forest cover an area one and a half times the size of Jamaica. The Central Suriname Nature Reserve is only the latest addition to Suriname’s outstanding nature conservation system, which includes both tropical forest ecosystems in the interior and a number of important coastal formations. Suriname’s protected areas system now covers nearly 14 percent of the total land surface of the country.

The creation of the CSNR effectively replaced the alternative scenario - proposals put forth by international logging companies in 1995 that would have given out half of the country’s forests to logging concessions. That would have been a major setback for conservation efforts in Suriname. Over the past several years, Conservation International (CI) was able to demonstrate to the Government of Suriname that the long-term economic benefits associated with the logging proposals were marginal and that it is economically feasible to substitute conservation based development for wholesale logging. CI has made the argument that the sustainable use of the forest for nature based tourism can provide a more stable, long-term source of revenue to fuel the country’s development than can the one time cash generated by timber concession sales. CI is now set to play a central role in helping Suriname develop its specialty tourism industry as an important foreign exchange earner and contributor to national development.

Low-volume, high-value tourism can provide Suriname substantial and sustainable economic benefits. The incredible potential for Suriname, where the population and economy are relatively small, is that a focused tourism product development program could have a major economic impact and truly change the paradigm of development. The raw tourism resources are of such a high quality that it is plausible to imagine tourism as a leading industry sector.

For fragile natural and cultural resources to survive in the long term — the nation as a whole must see benefits from conserving them. The appropriate development of the country’s premier nature park, most intact maroon community, and historic city center can play a leading role in establishing this sector and tapping into the rapidly growing international nature and culture tourism markets. Several other countries of the region, most notably Costa Rica and Belize, have already been successful in developing the specialty tourism sectors of their economies.

Given the appropriate support, Suriname could well follow the lead of Costa Rica and Belize, as a country that plans for economic growth with sustainable tourism as a leading sector. In a few short years in the early 1980’s Costa Rica went from having the highest deforestation rate in the world to being renowned as a nature tourism destination. Belize, as late as 1988, was encouraging international investment to clear virgin forest for citrus plantations — a development strategy that brought little benefit to Belizeans. Today Belize is thriving -with specialty nature and culture tourism as her leading foreign exchange earner - her resources are being conserved while providing the basis for economic growth.

For Suriname, specialty tourism provides the opportunity to diversify the economy from its heavy reliance on bauxite; to replace other extractive industries (gold, oil and timber) as the source of economic growth; and to serve as a strong incentive to protect the countries natural and cultural resources permanently. Costa Rica, a county of 3.7 million people, received 450,000 holiday travelers in 1997, providing their leading foreign exchange earner and major contributor to the $24 billion GDP. Suriname, with a population of 430,000 people and a GDP of $.5 billion, does not need a tourism industry anywhere near the scale of Costa Rica’s to be an important economic contributor. Capturing a nature-based market only 5% of the size of Costa Rica’s would be enough to clearly establish tourism as the second most important economic activity in Suriname after bauxite.

There is a pressing need to raise the standard of the entire tourism industry and to improve the country’s image as a destination. A focused program to improve the tourism experience is needed to reinvigorate the industry, along with significant funding to carry it out. The urgently needed first step is for a multidisciplinary effort to conceptualize and design that integrated tourism product development program.

Conservation International’s success in leading a similar integrated tourism development and conservation program in Ghana provides a relevant model. There, a comprehensive rainforest park and historic building conservation and tourism development project produced very tangible economic and conservation benefits. Charettes (intensive focused planning sessions based on a design technique used in the Beaux Artes) provided the concepts for zoning, conservation and tourism planning and visitor facilities design for the park and the historic towns. Documents were produced (the Kakum Conservation Area Development Guide is attached) and successful fund-raising followed.

Visitation to Ghana’s Kakum National Park went from fewer than 2,000 visitors in 1993 to over 80,000 in 1999. The project has been credited with stimulating over $25 million in private sector investment. The success of this project, with it’s focus on a few of the country’s best resources, led to a series of international awards and press coverage and the resulting international image enhancement for Ghana as a whole. In 1998, the project won the British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Global Award, the most prestigious award in the field, and Kakum was named Ecotourism Destination of the Year by Conde Nast Traveler Magazine. The entire tourism industry of the county was stimulated, and during the course of the project tourism replaced timber as the country’s third leading foreign exchange earner, with receipts of $350 million in 1998.

Funding the design charette process will provide a clear direction for a similar tourism development/conservation program for Suriname. Based on the results of this process, CI will seek funding for a major project from the donor community. The proposed program will be implemented with responsible Government of Suriname agencies and NGOs and integrated with the private sector.

Conservation International - in association with the Suriname Ministry of Transportation, Communication and Tourism, the Suriname Tourism Foundation; STINASU (the quasi-governmental organization responsible for tourism development of the country’s protected areas); METS (the largest tour operator in the country); Suriname Airways; and the Suriname Hotel Association - proposes to lead this process. The process will design a tourism development and conservation plan for the CSNR, Saramacaan Maroon communities of the Upper Suriname River, and an historic section of the capital. The goal is to focus on and develop the strongest of Suriname’s resources to provide the core of an international tourism destination. An integrated and comprehensive planning process will include the very best expertise in the areas of environmental education, interpretation, design, planning, protected area management, legal, spatial analysis/GIS, small enterprise, historic preservation, cultural, science (biodiversity), nature and cultural tourism and marketing expertise. These international experts will work in an interactive process with local institutions, NGOs, businesses and communities.

The process will result in detailed programs for the three target resources as well as visual images, budgets and visitor/revenue projections. The process will provide the basis for a proposal for a multi-year multi-million dollar project to improve Suriname’s tourism product, enhance her image as a destination, and improve community and individual participation in the economic benefits. It will catalyze the development of a tourism industry that provides a viable alternative to environmentally destructive extractive land-use practices. The key to the process is to ensure the most relevant and insightful expertise and experience is mobilized to participate in the design development.

Partnerships with organizations with relevant expertise (the American Society of Landscape Architects, the U.S. National Park Service, the International Council on Monuments and Sites and others) will provide access to the best expertise in every arena, ensuring the highest standard of technical advice is provided from the outset. In many cases the partner organizations may also bring human and financial resources of their own to support the core funding. Past experience shows that involving international organizations through this process helps to build their relationships with local institutions and that often results in other collaborative activities. This contributes to a synergy in the development process and long-term benefits in the areas of capacity building, training and technology transfer.

The process will begin with database assembly and climax with three concurrent product charettes to design the three components. The charettes will involve expertise from all the organizations listed, both Surinameer and international. The most appropriate architects, interpretive designers, scientists, representatives from tourism facilities and operators and marketing experts will contribute to the charettes. They will together establish priorities and a plan of action on training, product and facilities development and marketing; generate draft plans on the larger scale for the CSNR (including land-use zoning) and establish physical design concepts and an aesthetic standard. The charettes will provide the material for a document that will describe the vision and be the basis for a fund raising effort.

The process will provide a tourism product development and conservation program for three of Suriname’s most unique and important natural and cultural resources. It will serve to focus and motivate the tourism industry and conservationists around a core program in which each institution’s role is defined and budgeted. It will provide the basis for a proposal for a multi-year multi-million dollar integrated development program. A strong development concept, excellent visual images and the support of the invited organizations will serve to leverage the initial funding to ensure the more significant funding needed to grow sustainable tourism into one of Suriname’s leading sectors.