Helena Havrylets

Helena Havrylets is a specialist in sustainable tourism, quality assurance, and climate adaptation with more than a decade of experience supporting destinations and organizations across Argentina. She holds a Master’s degree in Project Evaluation (UCEMA), where her thesis explored green finance pathways for tourism—linking sustainability objectives to investment metrics and resilient business models. With additional training in climate change, she integrates technical and strategic perspectives to accelerate low-carbon transitions in the tourism sector.

She has served for over 14 years as the lead for Argentina’s Ministry of Tourism program “Sustainability Guidelines for Tourism Organizations and Municipalities” belonging to Argentina’s Tourist Quality System (SACT). Working at the national level in collaboration with provincial and municipal teams, Helena has coordinated and/or carried out its implementations in over 30 national tourism destinations and 500 organizations. She has participated in standardization bodies and working groups such as IRAM and ISO/TC 228 (WG13), as well as inter-institutional initiatives aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Her portfolio includes Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) projects in key tourism corridors—Misiones, Lakes Region, Austral Route 40, Cuyo, and Patagonia—covering technical assistance, training, and multi-stakeholder coordination with provincial teams and external consultants. Through FO.AR cooperation, she has provided technical assistance to public authorities and sector actors in Saint Lucia, Guyana, Suriname, and Belize, transferring tools for quality, sustainability, and destination planning.

In academia, Helena lectures at the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE), teaching courses on tourism policy and planning, lodging business administration, and quality and environmental management standards—bringing real-world cases and measurable indicators into the classroom. She is the author and co-author of reference manuals and guidelines, including Sustainability Guidelines for organizations and municipalities. Helena has spoken at the International Tourism Fair in Buenos Aires, regional forums, and universities on topics such as destination sustainability, hotel resilience, and the practical application of sustainable finance in tourism.

Across all her roles, Helena bridges public-private collaboration, academia, and communities to translate commitments into measurable triple-impact outcomes for destinations and tourism value chains.