♣ Visibility

"♣": Estrategias específicas empleadas por los estudios de caso para incrementar su nivel de auto-sustentabilidad.Pueden estar en inglés o español. Por favor usa el traductor del menú lateral 

"♣": Specific strategies used by the case studies to increase their degree of self-sustainability.They might be in English or in Spanish. Please use the side menu translator

• …..by sending students to do their social service in the communities. Student work includes:
  • the development of the website and its translation into English
  • the design of the logo
  • …

• The initiative has also been supported by external researchers and professionals who have helped it to formulate alternatives to become self-sustainable. Several of the external experts are part of the “Friends of the Community Ecotourism Network of Los Tuxtlas” group. The group first met during a visit to the community, and supports the initiative by promoting it through social media, inviting people, etc.
• This support allowed them to:
  • …
  • disseminate their projects at tourism promotion fairs.

• Finally, the UNESCO world-class seal has increased Songshan’s international projection and its ability to attract tourists.
• The initiative’s leaders interviewed thought that the nomination as a UNESCO Global Geopark has benefited them greatly because of the influence and learningthey have received from exchanges with other parks in the network.
• The detailed and holistic development planthat allowed Songshan to acquire the UNESCO label, considered aspects such as:
  • …
  • the design of multilevel-view areas, an autonomous transportation system, advanced scientific guidance systems and multi-faceted advertising strategies.
  • …
• The Shaolin Temple is probably the biggest attraction of the place for its shows and training in martial arts and Buddhism offered to thousands of students from China and around the world. As the cradle of kungfu, the temple hosts an international festival in these arts every 4 years with a parade and exhibitions that attract a significant number of visitors.
• UNESCO’s criteria: 1..2…3. An adequate communication platform to promote and guide geotourism, as well as a corporate identity.

• The initiative of the Farm is in a moment of transition, as its founding leaders are delegating the project to a team of young people who once participated as volunteers and who today are establishing a new team that has already taken about half a year renewing the facilities of the farm and devising new ways to manage and promote the initiative. This group is multidisciplinary and much more inclined to promote civic-ecological practices through arts and sports. To diversify the financing mechanisms of the project and to rely less on the requirements demanded by their traditional clients, they have redoubled efforts to increase the visibility of the project and attract more visitors, including it in hosting sites (such as Airbnb).

• The use of social networks such as Wechat, Weibo, Taobao and their own website, allows the farm to organize with the participating consumers, receive their feedback, disseminate its project, sell its products online and diversify the forms of payment for the convenience of the consumers (through Alipay for example).

• In addition to the above, the initiative promotes the rights of migrants and works to raise awareness of their conditions through activities such as public performances, the publication and distribution of research papers and books on the subject, and the training in Corporate Social Responsibility to companies, governments, and civic organizations. The latter includes guidelines to help them promote the organization of their members or employees, to establish a free internal hotline for them, to respect their labor rights, etc. Although in the opinion of Ma Yang, founder of [This/the initiative], Corporate Social Responsibility helps companies to improve their image and comply with the stipulations of the law, the vast majority of companies that have shown interest in it and have searched for their advice has been rather foreign (including Nike).

• Gain international visibility by bringing famous figures to attract funding.

• Based on the social technique (mentioned before) called “participatory mapping”,[This/the initiative] makes, altogether with the communities it serves, a diagnosis of local conditions, challenges, problems, and priorities and, based on them, it uses art, games, and communication as means for each of its programs. The participatory mapping not only allows the communities to visualize themselves and their context but to become agents of their own development, and define strategies and roles. The above is particularly important because the local population lacks an entrepreneurial mindset, most probably as a consequence of a governmental intervention that has not been particularly keen to include them in its development programs (x.). Although it is not voluntary, the social ownership and participation created with [This/the initiative]’s participatory methodologies functions as its model’s basis and source of sustainability, “because this way the communities become part of the projects’ developers and not only their beneficiaries” (x).