Community-Based Ecotourism: How to Make It Work
Abstract: Coincident with concerns about the accelerating loss of species and habitats has been a growing appreciation of the importance of biological diversity, the number of species in a particular ecosystem, to the health of the earth and human well-being. From a systemic point of view, this paper applies the concept of economics and marketing to generate an understanding of the processes of tourism change leading to, and resulting from the development of a community-based ecotourism venture in the world. The study indicate that while a high competitive market may have been instrumental in the formation of this ecotourism, it could be in danger of being eroded, because of the way in which the business is being managed to the max profit in a short term run.
Keywords: monitoring, ecotourism, market segmentation, price bias
Introduction
Ecotourism is the fastest growing sector, with an estimated growth rate of 10 to 15% [1], of one of the largest industries in the world: tourism. In China, survey showed that in some nature reserves the average increase of visitors from 1995 to 1998 was 87.8%, while during the same period the increase in tourists nationwide was 37.0% for foreign tourists and 10.3% for domestic tourists. Obviously nature reserve tourism is developing more rapidly than other types of tourism [2]. More and more scholars study the cases and feasibility of ecotourism. After United Nations proclamation of 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism, the passion was given another push. Along with the value of the traditional public tour changed, the market changed, but the operation of the management may not change accordingly. From an economic perspective, investigations of the economic impacts of tourism and recreation commonly involve the calculation of economic outputs which enable researchers to estimate the utility effects of any given role in final demand. Economy’s level of output can be defined as the income, employment, government revenue and, where applicable, foreign exchange flows. Almost everyone agreed the ecotourism should not just be a marketing slogan. From a development perspective, ecotourism ventures should only be considered successful if local communities have some measure of control over them and if they share equitably in the benefits emerging from ecotourism activities from a long term point of view. That is a balancing problem between economy and ecology. Monitoring is a critical component of any management process designed to cope with the uncertainty that is always present in predictions of impacts. Long-term monitoring will require community involvement.
1. Basic concept of ecotourism
Australia's National Ecotourism Strategy defines ecotourism as "nature-based tourism that involves education and interpretation of the natural environment and is managed to be ecologically sustainable". This concept came out of four stages about tourism: advocacy platform, cautionary platform, adaptancy platform and alternative tourism. (Weaver and Oppermann, 2000 cited by [3]) Many definitions had been put forward which shifted from bio-centric to anthropocentric or from deep ecologists to technological utopians. To make things clear, ecotourism should have four criterions as: 1. Belongs to tourism, it is a kind of business; 2. Based on nature, especially on charismatic mega-fauna(Henry, 1980; Leader-Williams, Dalal-Clayton, 1997, cited by[3]); 3. Education and culture; 4. Sustainability.
Although sustainability should be regarded as an integral part of the other three elements, it was important enough to be focused on.
Eco-tourist is considered as a marketing concept in this paper, even though a lot of debates about who can be called eco-tourist, what maybe necessary, went on between different views. Eco-tourists are those people who accept price bias, or who can be charged at different prices in market segmentation after market research. This will be discussed later.
2. The present situation of ecotourism in the world and Australia
2.1 The situation of Australia
Australia has a very outstanding performance in the development of ecotourism at past several years, including a series of tour strategies, establishing the ecotourism association national and local, releasing the industry-related guidebook annually, holding the international ecotourism meeting, establishing the international research center, building up the best model related to ecotourism technique, and designing the education and training courses. In addition Australia developed the National Ecotourism Accreditation Program, and National Nature and Ecotour Guide Certification Program. There are about 600 operators in the ecotourism business in Australia, estimating to have AUD$ 250 million (2002 cited by [4]) annually. The booming development of ecotourism mainly attributed to the National Ecotourism Strategy that put forward by federal government in 1994, which guided ecotourism under principle, carried on the integrated programming and developed with the blue print of management.
Although Australia plays the leading role on the operation of ecotourism, and have not a few successful cases example, along with development, still some operators make use of ecotourism to make sight-seeing profits as the purpose only. On the other hand, ecotourism clearly show needs to carry on the consultation and communications with the community (particularly community) group of the place, however the aborigine involvement case is quite a little, but the problem of the intellectual property rights when aboriginal culture was interpreted and the negative impact to the culture are some topics that Australia must face. [4]
2.2 The situation of the rest of the world
The developing country’s total revenue from sight-seeing trip that 17% came from the ecotourism in 2000[4], which indicated more and more people engaged in the ecotourism. The development of the ecotourism is already one of the international main currents.
New Zealand puts forward the Principles for Environmentally Responsible Tourism, such as requesting the industry to carry on the eco-tour possibly not bring about negative influence to the resort, and choose the travel agencies can attain the environmental education and promote local residents' benefits.[4]
Kenya, Africa has an unofficial organization, The Ecotourism Society of Kenya (ESOK), who brought up three principles to promote tourism: Combine the sightseeing, conservation and communities, Initiate the responsibility and sustainability, and protect the integrity and cultural attractions of the nature in Kenya.
South Africa Tour Companies, after many years understanding of the importance of coexist between community and sustainability, has already developed the tour activity and accommodation facilities that match the international ecotourism association standard without local government interference. [4]
Costa Rica was promising at ecotourism, but in recent years the international hotel-chain developed around national park and private-reserve, which brought excessive crowds of people and negative impact. [4]
Japan Ecotourism Society (JES) established in April 1998, and provided the opportunity and place to share experience and opinion, at the same time talented persons were trained. The role of JES is to ensure the cultural diversity in Japan, the beauty of natural ecosystem, and the local community can be passed one generation after another. [4]
China tourism has been developed in about 80% of the nature reserves since the early 1990s. Of the reserves that have developed tourism, 16% have more than 100,000 visitors annually. It is estimated that the total number of visitors was about 2.5 million in 1995, and the annual income generated was about US$ 63 million (Li & Han, 2001, cited by [2]). In the past 5 years, the number of reserve visitors has increased rapidly as a result of national economic growth. In this study the questionnaire survey showed that in some nature reserves the average increase of visitors from 1995 to 1998 was 87.8%, while during the same period the increase in tourists nationwide was 37.0% for foreign tourists and 10.3% for domestic tourists. Obviously ‘nature reserve tourism’ is developing more rapidly than other types of tourism. The most important issues constrain ecotourism development are lack qualified managers and legislators and short of fund. In such circumstances unexpected negative influences for both environments and local societies have occurred. [2]
Taiwan, China shaped the ecotourism with three principles: community benefit, sustainable development and the ecosystem conservation. Ecotourism industry should be constructed by local community, business, government and academe. They made very detail plans to give themselves ecotourism edge.
Malaysia National Ecotourism Plan, finished in 2002, will provide the technique guidance to shape ecotourism in the future and the conservation tool of nature and assets of culture.
The USA federal government did not participate in ecotourism development completely, so had no federal law to guide each state. It seems that tourism industry still don't important enough to need a specialized department responsible for. In addition to the parte reserves:A case study in Tianmushan Nature Reserve[J],Tourism Management 25 (2004) 559?564
[3] David Weaver, Ecotourism[M],Australia:John Wiley & Sons Austraia,Ltd.2001
[4] Taiwan Sustainable Ecotourism Association, Ecotourism White Book 2002[Z],Taiwan, September 2002
[5] Ross K. Dowling, Australian Ecotourism Conference[J],Conference reports / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 313-316
[6] V.S. Avila Foucat, Community-based ecotourism management moving towards sustainability, in Ventanilla, Oaxaca, Mexico[J],Ocean & Coastal Management 45 (2002) 511?529
[7] Chris Ryan,Karen Hughes,Sharon Chirgwin. THE GAZE, SPECTACLE ANDECOTOURISM[J].Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 148-163, 2000 |
