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About PASEO: a social enterprise
PASEO is a 'social enterprise' of farmers organizations and travel companies or tour operators. In return for their donations to the PASEO Foundation travel companies receive a discount on the PASEO tours and accommodations that are owned and managed by the farmers organization. The discount rate depends on the amount of money donated to the PASEO Foundation. The PASEO Foundation will use its funds to assist the farmers organizations with improving their existing tourism products or to develop new products, based on demand from tour operators. The PASEO Foundation assists them with technical assistance, training and capacity building, marketing & promotion.
By doing so, we create direct linkages between the tourism industry and local organizations in less developed countries. We believe that it is a fundamental right that local people, whose environment is used and whose resources are exploited for tourism purposes, should be the main beneficiaries of that tourism development.
PASEO is a concept owned by Contour Projects, a tourism consultancy company based in The Netherlands. Since 2006 financial support for PASEO has been given by Stichting Doen, PSO, Cordaid, TUI Nederland (Arke Reizen, Kras and Holland International) and Sawadee Reizen.
The "New York Declaration"
Currently different tourism products in Tanzania, Ecuador, South Africa and the Dominican Republic are offered. Other countries or products can be developed upon request. The central topic within the PASEO concept is to develop tourism while balancing social, economic and environmental issues. Therefore most of our tourism initiatives try to avoid too much disturbance of the social setting and the natural environment. All the income from tourism is allocated to the participating farmer families and/or local communities. Join and support the PASEO movement and sign our "New York Declaration" and send it to: info@contour-projects.com.
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