Understanding
ecotourism
Punta
Mona, a 30-acre organic farm and educational retreat has just
been recruiting for a full-time permanent manager for an ultra-ecological
lodge in the rain forest on the beach in the Gandoca Manzanillo
refuge in the Caribbean, looking for a professional with education
and experience running hospitality businesses including accounting,
marketing, personnel management and entrepreneurial spirit. You
could do that!
If
you don’t understand a single thing about ecotourism, it’s
worth noting - you could work in fabulous, exotic parts of the
world, on low pay, with high job satisfaction away from the tread-mill
that is our modern urban life.
Defining
ecotourism principles
The
International Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism as "responsible
travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves
the well-being of local people." This means that those who
implement and participate in ecotourism activities should follow
the following principles:
• Minimize
impact
• Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect
• Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts
• Provide direct financial benefits for conservation
• Provide financial benefits and empowerment for local people
• Raise sensitivity to host countries' political, environmental, and social
climate
• Support international human rights and labour agreements
Sustainable
tourism is the umbrella for tourism activities that consider
the environmental, ecological, social and cultural impact of
their activities. Eco-tourism sits within this, as one type of
activity, but what differentiates it is the fact that eco-tourism
uses the natural environment as its hook; so the great outdoors,
meet the Hill Tribes in Thailand, or walking holidays in Yorkshire
etc.
So,
why should UK businesses be interested in this niche market?
What difference will it make to your bottom line? Here are a
few facts and figures:
• Ecotourism
is considered the fastest growing market in the tourism industry,
according to the World Tourism Organization with an annual growth
rate of 5% worldwide and representing 6% of the world gross domestic
product, 11.4% of all consumer spending - not a market to be
taken lightly.
• Tourism is changing rapidly as nature, heritage, and recreational destinations
become more important, and as conventional tourism is forced to meet tougher
environmental requirements. This presents a challenge to government and private
enterprise to develop new approaches to the tourism market.
• Successful tourism must benefit local populations economically and culturally
to give them incentives to protect the natural resources which create the attraction
• You may be aware of the "triple bottom line" phenomena which
encourages business managers to think in terms of not just the good old fashioned
financial bottom line, but in terms of two additional "bottom lines," namely
the so-called "social bottom line" and "environmental bottom line."
• Individual operators and communities often do not know how to communicate
with potential clients. They may lack professional language skills. I recommend
that RDA’s pay professional editors to review and edit brochures and websites.
• Ecotourism has even been defined as cultural tourism – a cross
cultural experience.
• The trick with ecotourism is to preserve the natural resources whilst
also promoting them and accommodating growing volumes of tourists.
• Unfortunately, what has often given the destination initial appeal is
spoilt and destroyed by a successful promotion and exploitation of the resource.
• It is not a marketing ploy, nor is it scenic or nature-based travel.
• I have saved the best fact for last – the best thing about Eco
or sustainable business practices is that you save money.
There
are few Eco-certified accommodation providers or tourism providers
in the UK, which I could find. The Orchid Hotel, Mumbai, India
is a 245-room, five star, ECOTEL-certified establishments and
was designed from the outset with preservation of the environment
in mind. It has some novel ways of getting their customers involved
too. See http://www.orchidhotel.com/mumbai_hotels/enviroguests.htm Closer to home, the Considerate Hoteliers Association is working
to offer advice on environmental and sustainability issues to
its accommodation providers who are members. Check out http://www.consideratehoteliers.com/
So
if you want to forge ahead then check out this great website
which is full of practical tips for both you and your clients.
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/hotels.html
Do
you ever feel environmentally guilty when you fly? Then buy some
trees!
An
Australian non-profit environmental organization, called Greenfleet
has developed a programme that allows people to also do their
own "carbon-neutral" travelling.
Greenfleet's
programme allows people to pay for trees to be planted to compensate
for the carbon emissions that result from their travel. www.greenfleet.com.au has an online greenhouse calculator so that air travellers can
work out the amount of carbon dioxide produced from their one
seat on a flight and the number of trees that need to be planted
to absorb those greenhouse emissions can then be calculated.
Mary
Tebje
Mary@tourismleisure.org
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