Puerto Rican chefs draw on Afro-Caribbean and Taíno traditions to create outdoor food experiences. A geologist and his partner run canyoneering trips. A guide and her tour group zip along a scenic byway on e-bikes to a mountain overlook.
These experiences are among the business opportunities in Puerto Rico, identified by a collaboration between the U.S. Forest Service and the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise (CSGE) at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. This five-year effort aims to shape sustainable tourism development for El Yunque National Forest, its more than 1 million annual visitors and the surrounding communities as they continue to recover from recent natural disasters.
Overseen by Mark Milstein, faculty director of CSGE and Cornell Atkinson Senior Fellow, the project focuses on a road on the western edge of the national forest, PR-186. The first phase of the project, started in 2024, recently concluded, and the team has released the first reports.
Their recommendations are based on a wide range of information, including community interviews, surveys, workshops and site visits, as well as analyses of prior plans, visitor data, current tourism offerings and land-use data. “Low volume, high value” tourism plans rose to the top.
The CSGE team engaged with business owners, analyzed current supply chains and performed a market analysis to identify opportunities, including adventure tourism, ecotourism, educational tourism, and wellness experiences.
“Our multiyear partnership with Cornell University has helped El Yunque National Forest in its recovery from natural disasters,” said Gretchen Ruiz Ramos, partnership coordinator, El Yunque National Forest. “Research and analysis done by international experts in sustainable tourism have allowed us to identify areas of opportunity for socioeconomic development in the western region of the forest.
“Through the partnership, we encouraged high levels of participation from collaborators with years of valuable knowledge and experience working in the region. Their insights have been integrated into our sustainable planning for the future.”
A systems approach
The Forest Service has exceptional expertise in managing the forest itself, but El Yunque’s future depends on forces beyond their direct control – infrastructure, community services and economic flows that shape both visitor experiences and community well-being, said O’Shannon Burns, managing director for the CSGE Sustainable Tourism Asset Management Program.
“Our role is to help design a comprehensive regional approach where forest management, visitor experience planning and community development work as an integrated system,” Burns said. “That’s how tourism actually becomes sustainable: The forest is better protected, visitors have quality experiences and communities prosper from the tourism they attract.”
Without intentional planning, the area risks overcrowding, trail erosion and diminished visitor experiences. Local communities often foot the bill for stressors like overloaded electrical systems, reduced water supplies and damaged roads.
Heavily impacted by recent hurricanes, this area of the forest currently lacks adequate signage, attractions and amenities. Social media has drawn visitors to informal sites, while tourism development opportunities along the surrounding road – where local businesses could grow and benefit – remain largely untapped.
When done right, tourism development can satisfy visitor demand, maintain features that attract visitors to the area and reinvest proceeds back into the community, Milstein said.
“The U.S. Forest Service is responsible for managing the national forest and wants to work collaboratively with local communities and partners,” he said. “Economic, social and environmental factors act as a system and present destination managers with a very difficult set of choices.”
Evidence-based recommendations
Across Puerto Rico, creative entrepreneurs are designing unique experiences that reveal sides of Puerto Rico visitors would otherwise miss, Burns said. “The next phase of our work will include helping entrepreneurs shape how they design those experiences, how they market them and how they sell them.”
The project’s findings support positioning PR-186 as a quieter alternative to the main artery that leads to the visitor center, and developing a scenic drive with new roadside attractions. Alternative tourism offerings like canyoning at Río Espíritu Santo, guided forest bathing and hikes, and social impact volunteer tours can attract higher-paying visitors to the region, supporting more diverse recreation opportunities in a part of the national forest that was heavily impacted by recent hurricanes. New strategies also encourage visitors to stay in the eastern region longer and contribute more to the local economy, Milstein said.
“This project is a great example of taking what we know from past research and the broader palette of knowledge and experience that we have globally at Cornell and applying it to specific local conditions in Puerto Rico to help the Forest Service achieve their goals.”
Alison Fromme is a writer for the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
