Three major factors came together to weaken international tourism in 2003. Those include the U.S.-led conflict in Iraq, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia and Canada, and persistent weakness in many of the world's top economies. As a result, travelers tended to stay close to home, which in the Americas has meant more U.S. travel to nearby Latin America. According to the Travel Industry Association of America, during the past year the Caribbean and South America have shown rapid growth (+8% and +12% respectively), and popular destinations like Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Brazil are attracting more tourists than ever.

While it is impossible to determine the percentage of tourists that fall under cultural, ethno, or ecotourism statistics, all of those areas have increased in popularity as governments and industry search for ever more aggressive ways to promote exotic peoples and places. In addition, an array of tourism strategies have become important economic "development" tools for Indigenous Peoples and rural communities, especially sustainability-oriented initiatives. These strategies are promoted by the tourism industry, multilateral lending banks like the World Bank, environmental organizations, and even poverty-alleviation programs.

Unfortunately, most of these programs have not included sufficient involvement of Indigenous Peoples to make them sustainable and long-lasting. Indeed, the political and rights issues involved for Indigenous economic development tend to be too daunting for the promoters of tourism to address. When Indigenous Peoples are recognised as having a proactive role in such programs, which has not always been the case, their historical and political status as holders of collective rights is often devalued, or reduced to the status of mere "stakeholders". But as one Indigenous leader has observed, rights to informed consent and self-determination are defining factors for just and meaningful development in Indigenous communities:

When talking about the needs and rights of indigenous peoples, we are talking about the rights of at least 300 million indigenous people around the world, often among the poorest and most disadvantaged in their countries. Therefore, it would not be correct to say that we -indigenous peoples- are opposing changes and new developments for the sake of opposing. I believe that most of us welcome changes and development, but on the clear condition that it take place in accordance to our needs and desires, and is not imposed upon us. Neither are we against business and trade per se, because we also see trade as an important element in an interdependent world. Trade links between countries and nations are crucial components in the maintenance of peace and security in the world. Unfortunately, traditional indigenous legal concepts, including in the field of intellectual property, are often seen as a threat to business interests, development and national prosperity.[1]

Tourism has become an important arena in which Indigenous Peoples have been asserting a similarly strong cultural and political vision, and they have begun acting in coordinated ways to ensure that they are shapers of tourism activities in their communities. One example of this is the International Forum on Indigenous Tourism, held in Oaxaca, Mexico during 2002 as a response to the U.N.'s declaration of 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism. In the document produced there, the Oaxaca Declaration, participants affirmed, "Indigenous Peoples are not objects of tourism development. We are active subjects with the rights and responsibilities to our territories and the processes of tourism planning, implementation, and evaluation that happen in them. This means we are responsible for defending Indigenous lands and communities from development schemes imposed by governments, development agencies, private corporations, NGO's, and specialists."

Reflecting what is happening in international tourism policy circles, there are currently major efforts in Latin America to certify sustainable tourism and ecotourism so that they meet certain standards of quality and accountability. These include the Certification of Sustainable Tourism (Costa Rica), Green Deal (Guatemala), Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (Brazil), Smart Voyager (Ecuador), among others. Certification seeks to redress the gap between the rhetoric -that tourism and its variants, eco and ethnotourism, help economic development and nature conservation in local communities- and the realities of ecosystem degradation, economic leakage, and socio-economic inequality that have often accompanied tourism (even so-called "sustainable tourism") development. Proponents of auditing and certifications in tourism argue that consumers have come to expect a certain level of transparency, integrity, and quality in the products and services they purchase, and therefore the businesses that can guarantee these gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. It is also promoted as a way the industry can regulate itself through the implementation of best practices.

Indigenous Peoples -who have long understood tourism's unfulfilled promises and darker sides of dispossession, displacement, and exploitation- are understandably interested in such reforms. But they have also expressed concerns about the tourism certification movement, and there are currently efforts under way in Indigenous networks to deliberate on the opportunities and consequences of tourism certification. One of these was a follow-up to the Oaxaca Forum mentioned above, an online forum called "Rethinking Indigenous Tourism Certification", hosted for during the month June, 2004 by U.S.-based Indigenous Tourism Rights International, with substantial participation of Indigenous Peoples from Latin America.

In a global commercial environment, certifications provide a common set of accepted practices and regulations, as well as the appearance of legitimacy, that become more important as other sources of legitimacy, such as community and the state, decline in importance. On the surface, auditing processes and certifications seem to be obscure, mundane, and neutral, since they are largely based on technical criteria. But as the definition of what and who is auditable and certifiable widens, some social critics have begun to suggest that we are witnessing the rise of a globalising "audit society," in which social activities are increasingly being redefined and regulated in terms of market certifications, and the logic of neoliberalism  -privatisation, efficiency, profitability, universal best practices and quality indicators, etc.- is more deeply embedded as the central mode of organising society.

For the Indigenous organisers and participants of "Rethinking Indigenous Tourism Certification," accountability, legitimacy, and responsibility are universal human problems, and yet every culture approaches and resolves these problems on its own terms. The notion of audit or accreditation carried out by an external party does not automatically translate to other cultural contexts. In many Indigenous contexts, legitimacy is demonstrated by lineage, differentiated access to specialised knowledge, fulfilment of obligatory communal responsibilities, and so on, and responsibility and accountability are guaranteed through specific cultural institutions, ceremonies, spiritualities, and social practices. Given colonial histories of dispossession and domination, not to mention rocky relationships with international environmental and development institutions, many Indigenous Peoples express reluctance to letting external actors define the legitimacy of their activities.

Of course, many Indigenous Peoples already participate in certified markets -organic and fair trade coffee, timber, cacao, textiles, etc.- but participants affirmed that the outcome of tourism is not a thing but human relationships, both between hosts and hosts, and guests and hosts. Indeed, tourists tend to go to Indigenous communities because they expect a certain kind of social experience. Certifying that tourism in an Indigenous community meets certain external standards of accountability, efficiency, best practices, etc. means voluntarily ceding to outside auditors and consultants control over tourism activities and relationships, something many communities are reluctant to do. Some participants also expressed concern that certifications create a dependency on specialised international markets, and can create social divisions within communities between those certified by external agencies and those still in the officially-undesirable "natural" state. Furthermore, as long as costs to be certified are high (in terms of program costs and sustainable technology investments), certification will remain out of reach for many communities, especially those struggling with basic issues like land rights, clean water, electricity, education, and so on.

In spite of the fact that there are currently well over one-hundred sustainability-oriented tourism certifications, tourists have yet to take to the idea. Yet major tourism and environmental organisations are pressing on with new programs and frameworks, and Latin America is a key region where these efforts are taking place. Clearly Indigenous participation and informed consent in these processes is necessary -indeed, guaranteed by international agreements like the International Labor Organization's Convention 169- although such participation has not yet really materialised. Just as with other development schemes generated in the North, tourism certification is likely to be irrelevant, if not further marginalise Indigenous Peoples in important civil society issues, if it does not take place through a legitimate and inclusive process.