Foreign impact The impact of foreigners in the small community of Vilcabamba The past 7 weeks we have done a small survey among over 330 Ecuadorians who life in the small town (around 5000 inhabitants) of Vilcabamba, located in a fertile valley in the south of Ecuador. The first name of this town was Huilcopamba, which roughly translates from the local indigenous language Quichua into: Valley of the healing trees. The last 10 years this small town grew rapidly with around 20% more inhabitants. In difference with the past, many of these newcomers are foreigners who followed the recommendations of a Real-estate Magazine and other foreigners, who called this town one of the best places in the world to live and enjoy life. The fertile valley supposedly provides such a healthy environment that people who live here, tend to live longer. Some foreign people even believed that living in Vilcabamba would protect them from “The End of the World” in 2012… The vibe of the town has changed a lot over the past 10 years and we from Fairtravel4u were curious what the Ecuadorians would think about the impact of foreigners, who now make up around 10% of the population. Since we didn’t want to disturb the residents at home, we started to ask the people on the street. But when most of them told us that they were very busy, so had no time to fill in our survey we had to change tactics. The alternative was to pass by the working areas like shops, restaurants, hotels, but also the hospital, a school, the fire brigade, etc. Even this took us more time than expected, since many people proofed not to be very interested in answering our questions. The first comment was almost always still that they were too
Foreign impact The impact of foreigners in the small community of Vilcabamba The past 7 weeks we have done a small survey among over 330 Ecuadorians who life in the small town (around 5000 inhabitants) of Vilcabamba, located in a fertile valley in the south of Ecuador. The first name of this town was Huilcopamba, which roughly translates from the local indigenous language Quichua into: Valley of the healing trees. The last 10 years this small town grew rapidly with around 20% more inhabitants. In difference with the past, many of these newcomers are foreigners who followed the recommendations of a Real-estate Magazine and other foreigners, who called this town one of the best places in the world to live
