Revolutionising tourism: a community model that benefits local people and tourists

This article is based on a webinar of the same name organised by the Casa Ben Linder in Managua in July. The webinar was introduced by CBL co-ordinator Becca Renk with contributions from four recent participants in CBL delegations: Ken Yale, Gayle Nielson and Larry Fisk from the US, and Geraldine Cawthorne from the UK. Pictured above CBL women’s empowerment delegation at one of the 205 maternity homes in Nicaragua.

Nicaragua’s community based tourism model

Since 2007 Nicaragua has developed a tourism model that ensures the benefits reach local people, that is culturally appropriate, and minimises the environmental impact. It is also a model that warmly welcomes tourists, creates local jobs in family and community focussed businesses.

Anasha Campbell, the Minister of Tourism, highlights the way in which tourism can also serve to enhance mutual understanding between different cultures and foster a spirit of peace. The government reinforces this model through providing free training programmes for those working in the tourism sector.

In 2016/7 tourism was booming in Nicaragua. However from 2018 – 2023 the tourism sector contracted as a result of the 2018 attempted coup, two major hurricanes at the end of 2020, and the COVID pandemic. Since 2024 tourists numbers have steadily risen, 75% of them Nicaraguans taking advantage of the greatly improved infrastructure, and stunning scenery within their own country.

Something to offer for everyone: tourism accolades that Nicaragua has received in 2025

It made the top 25 places to visit by the world’s most influential travel magazine, Conde Nast Traveler

The top 50 list of Travel + Leisure Magazine   

#14 on the New York Times List of “52 Places to Go in 2025” which said, “A darling of ecotourism is ready for its next renaissance.” 

Recent travellers from the US and UK report on their visits

Ken Yale, an educator and anti imperialist activist from the San Francisco Bay area, who visited Nicaragua on the CBL Women’s Empowerment delegation, has travelled extensively to more than forty countries. This is how he described his experience as a participant on the delegation. ‘As an educator going to Nicaragua on the Women’s Empowerment Delegation is one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had, as an activist one of the most inspiring, as a traveller one of the best organised.

The programme was an opportunity to witness the way in which the government’s well integrated community model of poverty reduction plays out at all levels from government ministries, the National Assembly, women’s police stations, health clinics, to maternity homes, and individual families. One example that the delegation witnessed is a gender equality campaign against violence against women being implemented across at all levels.

Why visit Nicaragua? Ken went on to highlight the fact that so many leaders internationally claim they will or are making changes to address high levels of poverty but in practice very little transpires. Nicaragua has moved beyond poverty reduction rhetoric to implementing a model that addresses people’s material needs. This demonstrates what is possible with political will on the part of the government and everyone working together to promote lived well being for everyone.

NSCAG activist Geraldine Cawthorne from London was visiting Nicaragua for the third time having previously been to the country on environmental and women’s brigades 30 years ago. She described what things have changed and what has remained the same.

Her last visit was in 1991, a year after the shock election of the UNO neoliberal government, a time when many Sandinistas were distraught at the election result. Geraldine describes meeting Sandinistas who explained that they had voted for the US backed UNO because they believed that was only way the agony of deaths and economic hardship would come to an end.

The brigades slept in dormitories in bunks, water was rationed and there was no electricity. Transport was by lorries, on foot, or in an Toyota pick up that often got stuck in the mud or broke down, or both. The 175 mile journey from Managua to San Carlos took all day on a dirt track.

On the island of Solentiname on Lake Cocibolca (Nicaragua) the health clinic was a wooden cabin with basic medicines, two exhausted doctors staffed a hospital, and children at best attended school for only a year. Travellers to Nicaragua from London in those pre internet days carried piles of paper documents and everything else including tyres for a vehicle.

Fast forward to 2025 the improvements to infrastructure are dramatic: the journey from Managua to San Carlos takes 2-3 hours on a paved road, facilities in hostels and hotels are unrecognisable; and the widespread use of technology especially WhatsApp has revolutionised communications.

On the island of Mancaron, a well equipped health centre is open all week and does regular visits to outlying islands and the island has two primary schools and one secondary school.

But what has stayed the same is the sense of everyone working together, the energy, warmth, care, and support for each other.

Getting to know local people and experience the spectacular flora and fauna

Gayle Nielson from Minnesota visited Nicaragua on the Casa Ben Linder bird brigade in February 2025

The bird brigade travelled from Managua to San Carlos, before taking a boat trip along the river that forms the border with Costa Rica and then travelling to Mancaron, one of the islands that make up Solentiname. Very knowledgeable guides from local communities who knew everyone made the trip especially enjoyable. The programme included visits to a cocao co-operative, artisan workshops, and petroglyphs.

Gayle described the richness of the country’s scenery and fauna and flora: from orchids to two toed sloths, to caimans, to anteaters, and the spectacular crater lake Laguna de Apoyo,

Getting to understand history: Nicaragua at the cross roads of colonial exploitation

Larry Fisk from Minnesota has a particular interest in key historical events and figures that have shaped Nicaragua. These included the 6,000 year old footprints of Acahualinca believed to be the earliest human footprints in the Americas.

Larry explained the strategic importance of the Rio San Juan the and how this played out in 18th and 19th centuries in geopolitical power struggles involving the Spanish and the US in an alliance against the British.

The Spanish constructed a fort at El Castillo to fend off pirates and buccaneers including Lord Nelson who failed in an attempt in 1780 to capture the fort for the British.

US ‘conquistadores’ include the businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt who operated a steamship service along the Rio San Juan transporting prospectors to the Californian gold fields, and the infamous filibuster William Walker who declared himself president of Nicaragua driven by the US doctrine of manifest destiny.

This US belief in the right to shape and control the entire continent in their own interests continues through history to this day: the US marines occupation of Nicaragua from 1913 to 1933, the brutal contra war of the 1980s, to the current US sanctions (illegal coercive measures) and multiple other forms of intervention.

But Nicaragua’s history is also one of rebellion and resistance to foreign intervention. Most famously in recent history Augusto César Sandino, led a rebellion between 1927 and 1933 against the US occupation of Nicaragua by the US marines. The Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) takes his name and he has became an inspiration and symbol of resistance to US imperialism throughout the continent.

Why visit Nicaragua? The country is a respite from battles back home, a place with extraordinary scenery, flora and fauna, where you can breathe freely, a country that counteracts the myth that things will never change, an example of decent, caring, welcoming society that believes in people.

Casa Ben Linder trips to Nicaragua 2026

To listen to the recording of the webinar click here

To contact Casa Ben Linder about guest house reservations or delegations click here