Nature tourism as ecotourism
Nature ecotourism need to satisfy tourists desire with minimizing impact on the environment. However, even in minimizing impact in passive ecotourism, the impacts cannot be zero. In a term of active ecotourism, keeping the balance between attractions and environment becomes more important. Awaritefe (2004, p. 250) found “The result showing high importance attached to natural attractions was expected, while the low importance attached to safety/security and service related components was perplexing” though a research in Nigeria. In the case of ecotourism this ‘natural attraction’ should be an educational component or conservation works, for ecotourists. He also mentioned importance of uniqueness of nature based tourism compare to a quality of the constructed or man-made environment, which is more developed, planned and managed in Western environments. Furthermore, constructed environments such as infrastructure/ facilities/ amenities tend to be considered as disruptions, which reduces the quality of the natural tropical rainforest environment (Awaritefe, 2004, p. 251). This characteristic of nature tourism is very similar to ideal ecotourits, if reduction of artificial object decreases environmental impacts. Appreciation to the environment is a very important principle in operating ecotourism compared to nature tourism.
Their expectations of visually un-facilitated environment do not mean they tend to expect less service quality. If people require the same quality of service, a tourism industry needs to provide them with hided infrastructures. It does not minimize the impact so it cannot be ecotourism, or the tourism might cost more for local environment behind great wild view. To transform nature tourism to ecotourism, the destination needs to have educational components that explain environmental impact of each facility in their tourism strategy or advertisement. High expectation requires high quality of service to be satisfied. So, educational components are essential to control tourists’ expectations. Therefore, a nature tourist would satisfy less service context of a tour, and they could be an ecotourist.
However, it is not easy to manage an educational system and create an image of a destination for a tourism industry. Co-operation of marketing and conservation strategy would support it to protect the environment and attract ecotourists.
A logo of ‘ecolodge’ gives ecotourists standard of the accommodations, which is environmentally friendly and provide minimum services compared to luxury hotels. The logo attracts people who do not expect high quality of services in a global market. In addition, these people prefer supporting local community and environment that an ecolodge offers them. On the other hand, Osland and Mackoy mentioned (2004, p. 119), “In our sample, 80% of the Mexican ecolodges expressed community-oriented performance goals, whereas only 45% of the Costa Rican lodges mentioned community goals. We offer two possible explanations for these different results. First, we found that most of the ecolodges in Mexico are owned by Mexicans, while most of the ecolodges in our sample in Costa Rica are owned by foreigners.” The ecolodge’s relationship with local society affects their performance. In ecotourism, lodge owners should interact more with local communities to improve their quality of the logo. Therefore, they can develop economical benefit for local people and the people would support them to sustain the environment, where is foundation of their lodges.
Mass tourism as ecotourism
Mass tourism brings fresh money that people can pool it for conservation. It depends on a structure of a tourism industry, but local people receive more benefit than nothing. As long as the impact of tourism is less than the carrying capacity and tourists can learn about ecology, it would be ecotourism. It is impossible to organise a mass ecotour in undisturbed areas, but it is possible at carrying capacity hardening area. Weaver (2001, p. 87) explained about green space in urban area, where can operate mass ecotourism. Urban area is the best place for ecotourism when it is focusing on educational components of itself. However, the example is Canadian city of Waterloo, where about 90 thousand people were living, and the city has 85% of environment for wild flora and fauna in 2001. The percentage is almost same as the ‘95-5’ rule (Weaver, 2001, p. 81). That means in every ecotourism requires special area between human and nature space. Ecotourists want buffer zones probably for wildlife.
Goeldner and Ritchie (2003, p. 306) describe, “a major trend is the growth of the over-65 senior citizen market and the semi-senior citizen market”, and elder people tend to be soft-ecotourists such as birdwatchers rather than hard-ecotourists. They prefer observing nature to close interaction. They would create new market of ecotourism, and the importance of soft-ecotourism will increase.
“Although some authors (Mastny, 2001; Pleumarom, 2001) have correctly used 'mass ecotourism' as a derogatory label to describe the 'green' marketing efforts of transnational tourism corporations”(as cited in Kontogeorgopoulos, 2004, p.105), local community and a group of small tourism operators can organise a mass ecotourism, which must have educational components and economical benefit that support conservation work at a protected area. Kontogeorgopoulos, (2004, p.106) also stated, “Ecotourism in Phuket has developed as a by-product of conventional tourism, and as such, remains fundamentally linked to and dependent on the continued and future health of national and regional tourism development.”
The most valuable advantage of mass ecotourism is ‘minimizing impact’. Because it attracts tourists to 5% of natural area, it can protect 95% of natural environment. Moreover it can organise effective educational course for tourists, and the knowledge would help interest people in environment around them. It creates huge revenue for local community and conservation work as well.
Nature ecotourism need to satisfy tourists desire with minimizing impact on the environment. However, even in minimizing impact in passive ecotourism, the impacts cannot be zero. In a term of active ecotourism, keeping the balance between attractions and environment becomes more important. Awaritefe (2004, p. 250) found “The result showing high importance attached to natural attractions was expected, while the low importance attached to safety/security and service related components was perplexing” though a research in Nigeria. In the case of ecotourism this ‘natural attraction’ should be an educational component or conservation works, for ecotourists. He also mentioned importance of uniqueness of nature based tourism compare to a quality of the constructed or man-made environment, which is more developed, planned and managed in Western environments. Furthermore, constructed environments such as infrastructure/ facilities/ amenities tend to be considered as disruptions, which reduces the quality of the natural tropical rainforest environment (Awaritefe, 2004, p. 251). This characteristic of nature tourism is very similar to ideal ecotourits, if reduction of artificial object decreases environmental impacts. Appreciation to the environment is a very important principle in operating ecotourism compared to nature tourism.
Their expectations of visually un-facilitated environment do not mean they tend to expect less service quality. If people require the same quality of service, a tourism industry needs to provide them with hided infrastructures. It does not minimize the impact so it cannot be ecotourism, or the tourism might cost more for local environment behind great wild view. To transform nature tourism to ecotourism, the destination needs to have educational components that explain environmental impact of each facility in their tourism strategy or advertisement. High expectation requires high quality of service to be satisfied. So, educational components are essential to control tourists’ expectations. Therefore, a nature tourist would satisfy less service context of a tour, and they could be an ecotourist.
However, it is not easy to manage an educational system and create an image of a destination for a tourism industry. Co-operation of marketing and conservation strategy would support it to protect the environment and attract ecotourists.
A logo of ‘ecolodge’ gives ecotourists standard of the accommodations, which is environmentally friendly and provide minimum services compared to luxury hotels. The logo attracts people who do not expect high quality of services in a global market. In addition, these people prefer supporting local community and environment that an ecolodge offers them. On the other hand, Osland and Mackoy mentioned (2004, p. 119), “In our sample, 80% of the Mexican ecolodges expressed community-oriented performance goals, whereas only 45% of the Costa Rican lodges mentioned community goals. We offer two possible explanations for these different results. First, we found that most of the ecolodges in Mexico are owned by Mexicans, while most of the ecolodges in our sample in Costa Rica are owned by foreigners.” The ecolodge’s relationship with local society affects their performance. In ecotourism, lodge owners should interact more with local communities to improve their quality of the logo. Therefore, they can develop economical benefit for local people and the people would support them to sustain the environment, where is foundation of their lodges.
Mass tourism as ecotourism
Mass tourism brings fresh money that people can pool it for conservation. It depends on a structure of a tourism industry, but local people receive more benefit than nothing. As long as the impact of tourism is less than the carrying capacity and tourists can learn about ecology, it would be ecotourism. It is impossible to organise a mass ecotour in undisturbed areas, but it is possible at carrying capacity hardening area. Weaver (2001, p. 87) explained about green space in urban area, where can operate mass ecotourism. Urban area is the best place for ecotourism when it is focusing on educational components of itself. However, the example is Canadian city of Waterloo, where about 90 thousand people were living, and the city has 85% of environment for wild flora and fauna in 2001. The percentage is almost same as the ‘95-5’ rule (Weaver, 2001, p. 81). That means in every ecotourism requires special area between human and nature space. Ecotourists want buffer zones probably for wildlife.
Goeldner and Ritchie (2003, p. 306) describe, “a major trend is the growth of the over-65 senior citizen market and the semi-senior citizen market”, and elder people tend to be soft-ecotourists such as birdwatchers rather than hard-ecotourists. They prefer observing nature to close interaction. They would create new market of ecotourism, and the importance of soft-ecotourism will increase.
“Although some authors (Mastny, 2001; Pleumarom, 2001) have correctly used 'mass ecotourism' as a derogatory label to describe the 'green' marketing efforts of transnational tourism corporations”(as cited in Kontogeorgopoulos, 2004, p.105), local community and a group of small tourism operators can organise a mass ecotourism, which must have educational components and economical benefit that support conservation work at a protected area. Kontogeorgopoulos, (2004, p.106) also stated, “Ecotourism in Phuket has developed as a by-product of conventional tourism, and as such, remains fundamentally linked to and dependent on the continued and future health of national and regional tourism development.”
The most valuable advantage of mass ecotourism is ‘minimizing impact’. Because it attracts tourists to 5% of natural area, it can protect 95% of natural environment. Moreover it can organise effective educational course for tourists, and the knowledge would help interest people in environment around them. It creates huge revenue for local community and conservation work as well.