Pushing Sustainable Tourism
to Promote Land Conservation

Sustainable tourism provides a viable answer to one of the world’s trickiest challenges: how to finance land conservation and preserve natural ecosystems while addressing the sector’s persistent funding gap.

Traditional conservation financing depends heavily on government budgets—already strained across Latin America and the Caribbean—and on philanthropic donations and grants, which lack the scale and predictability required for long-term impact. The absence of scalable and replicable financial models limits institutional participation and prevents conservation initiatives from achieving transformational scale.

Government spending on conservation continues to face pressure as nations prioritize healthcare, education, and infrastructure—particularly in the aftermath of global crises. Because environmental benefits are often realized over the medium to long term, these programs tend to be deferred in favor of projects with faster and more visible results. As a consequence, conservation efforts remain underfunded and fragmented.

According to a report by the Paulson Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the gap between current global biodiversity financing and actual needs ranges from $598 billion to $824 billion per year—and there is no indication this deficit will close anytime soon.

Conservation models that rely exclusively on philanthropy are no longer sufficient. A transition toward self-sustaining, revenue-generating models with stable income streams is critical.

A compelling example can be found in Chile, where Explora—a Latin American exploration hospitality company—has integrated conservation into its core business model. Through the creation of a 6,000-hectare land reserve adjacent to Torres del Paine National Park, Explora is preserving and regenerating ecosystems degraded by past ranching activities. Roughly 99 percent of the land is designated for conservation, with only 1 percent used for low-impact hospitality operations. The revenues generated from these sustainable lodges finance the entirety of the conservation agenda.

Working with The Nature Conservancy, Explora established an endowment fund supported by the sale of equity shares in the conserved land to investors. This innovative approach combines a profit-generating enterprise with a non-profit conservation commitment, creating a financially self-sustaining, scalable, and replicable model for land protection.

While examples like this are promising, the sector still struggles to achieve widespread scale. Most of these models remain small, localized, and reliant on patient capital. To elevate conservation into an investable asset class, capital must shift from donor-driven to investor-driven models. A joint study by Credit Suisse, WWF, and McKinsey & Company suggests that reallocating just one percent of global reinvested capital could close the funding gap for conservation.

Sustainable tourism investments can play a central role in this reallocation by delivering consistent revenue streams and aligning financial returns with environmental outcomes. Greenfield developments affiliated with globally recognized hospitality brands—such as Six Senses and Aman—are already embedding conservation directly into their operations. Because these brands possess global reach, strong investor relationships, and proven management systems, they can scale conservation across markets while maintaining investor confidence.

Financial institutions and capital markets also have a pivotal role to play. Thematic debt instruments—such as green, social, and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs)—have emerged as effective tools to finance conservation. With a market exceeding $60 billion in Latin America and the Caribbean, SLBs represent one of the region’s fastest-growing segments of sustainable finance. Most issuances are linked to decarbonization, biodiversity, or ecosystem preservation. These instruments offer investors transparency, measurable results, and verifiable impact—all critical for scaling conservation finance.

Done correctly, sustainable tourism can drive land conservation without imposing a financial burden on operations. By embedding robust conservation strategies into their business models, tourism enterprises can attract new classes of impact investors and access innovative financing structures, including SLBs and blended finance. This dual approach not only narrows the conservation funding gap but also enhances the sector’s long-term competitiveness and resilience.

Originally published by Rogerio Basso and Daniel Arevalo.
Republished and adapted by Impactum Capital Advisors.