Conflict of interests in National Parks and its impact at the development of tourism: Case of study of the Machalilla National Park (Ecuador)

Conflict of interests in National Parks and its impact at the development of tourism. Case of study: National Park of Machalilla, Ecuador.

Abstract

National Parks are places where Natural and Cultural Heritage of a specific site is concentrated, which through its allocation as a protected area manages to conserve its wealth, however, tourism has shown on several occasions to be a conflictive point about the use of its heritage for its own interest, generating conflicts of interest. Machalilla National Park, Ecuador's second most visited National Park after the Galapagos National Park, in which disputes have arisen between commercial, governmental, ecological and social sectors, producing negative effects on the development of tourism in that place, an activity that has been become the main source of income for many local communities.Through the descriptive method and the analysis - synthesis method, it is expected to analyze the effect of inter-institutional conflicts of interest on tourism. Similarly, estimates of how the current problems can be solved, focused on three types of scenarios, which should be taken as future procedures.