Gomera Experience

Business recomended by the Garajonay National Park

In the year 2005, The National Park Garajonay, together with the Insular Association of Rural Development of La Gomera (AIDER La Gomera), took the decision to promote the implantation of the ECST in the island of La Gomera. Thus it was putting the Charter at the disposal of the island as a tool to promote the sustainable tourism.

The Charter approach ensures that organizations, local people and 24 local tourism businesses work together to protect the area, while at the same time increasing opportunities for visitors to discover and enjoy its special qualities.
The Charter was drawn up under the leadership of the EUROPARC Federation.

Manifiest

Speaking with one voice as a group of La Gomera businesses who have signed up to the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism, we wish to manifest our commitment to the sustainability of our island in order to offer it up to visitors without pretentious adulteration, without any misleading dressing-up, without anything extra not directly derived from its natural self. We want to present it as it is, as it has been, and how we would like it to be in future, so as to pass it on in the same pure form in which we received it.
Pass it on not just to our descendants, but also to future and – in particular – current visitors. Visitors, not tourists, who thanks to our commitment to sustainability should view the island as its native inhabitants view it, and travel through it just as we Gomerans do, interacting with its different elements as we do day in, day out. Ultimately, our aim is for visitors to blend in with the island and its people, as if they were one of us.
Those of us in the business of catering for visitors do not seek to make the island a stage for tourism on which to artificially showcase its many excellences. Rather we seek to offer La Gomera as the living entity which it really it is, unaltered and unalterable save for the action of the elements and the daily activities of those who live here.
To preserve and perpetuate La Gomera’s special traits, we aim to keep it free of all influence except the water that falls on our laurel forests, the seas of clouds that shape our rugged terrain, the whimsical features of our native plant and animal life.
This joint conservationist spirit is the result of our natural affection for our island, which we place before your visitor eyes as if they were our own. Because only if we show love and commitment towards ourselves and the things that are ours can we ensure that you will love us also.