Marcela Torres

Marcela Torres is a journalist and master of tourism, with a major in ecotourism. Born in Santiago, Chile, she has lived in the United States, Costa Rica, and Australia, where she graduated from James Cook University.

She has facilitated two NBSAP Forum Massive Open Online Courses: "Greening Production and Consumption" (in Spanish) and "Introduction to Resilience for Development" (in English).

Because of her passion for travel, she has visited most of Chile and other countries including Peru, Brazil and Argentina. She is co-author (in Spanish) of the two editions (2004 & 1999) of the "Guide to Chile's National Parks" , which describes the attractions, endangered species and facilities in the 24 protected areas with the greatest demand for tourism in the country.

She also writes a bilingual blog (http://tourism-people-nature.blogspot.com/) that covers several topics (such as environmental, social and economic impacts of tourism, climate change, carrying capacity, etc.) aimed at promoting responsibility in the tourism industry towards the people and the environment of the destinations it relies upon.

Marcela has expertise in the following areas:

- More than 5 years of experience in different levels of education, both in academia as well as in adult training (for tourism business owners), including online education as a Mentor for the courses on "Greening the Economy" and "Sustainable Cities" offered by Lund University through the Coursera.org online platform.

- Over 7 years of experience in different areas of the tourism industry, as a bilingual tour guide (English-Spanish), head of traffic (supervising guides and transportation), booking agent for inbound tour operators, Tour and Travel Specialist in charge of selecting suppliers in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Peru, and independent consultant on sustainable tourism, developing, among other projects, the first sustainable visitor center in Los Flamencos National Reserve in northern Chile.

- More than 20 years of experience in communications and translations, developing and translating content for different types of audiences in several media platforms (newspaper, radio, Internet), working with Chilean government institutions, national companies and international non-governmental organizations, as well as in the field in Argentina and Peru.