Principles and benefits of Ecotourism
Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world. Ecotourism is defined as the responsible traveling in natural areas that have conserved the environment and culture and benefits its local people. Ecotourism is different from natural tourism because it stresses education, conservation, community participation, and the responsibility of the travelers to ensure the environment is well maintained. The main objectives of ecotourism are to offer education on environment maintenance, a nature-based experience for the visitors and to maintain this in an affordable and sustainable manner (Lowman, 2009, par.3). The principles of ecotourism that should be followed by all those who participate and implement the activities of ecotourism are as follows. They should see to it that they provide financial benefits and empowerment to the local community, minimize negative environmental impact, provide direct financial gain for conservation, ensure both visitors and hosts obtain positive experience, create awareness and respect for the environment and culture and finally, sensitize the environmental, social and political climate of the host countries (The International Ecotourism Society, 1990, par.3). An environment that is well conserved has several benefits; acts as a source of natural attractions and as a result, it leads to growth in economical, environmental, and social aspects in third world countries. Secondly, it offers great opportunities for investment, employment and adds to the nation a chance in protecting its biological resources. Though the host countries may enjoy all the above benefits, policies need to be developed that will promote responsible tourism growth, sophisticated and dynamic participation from the local community, and protection of the biological legacy of the third world countries (Merg, 2007, par.3).
Environmental interpretation in relation to ecotourism
One thing that has made ecotourism to be successful is the tool of environmental interpretation. Simply, environmental interpretation means how easy people can interpret the environmental, cultural, and historical tradition of objects and places to a figure they can easily comprehend. People are most likely to associate themselves with things they can understand and relate to. Typically, environmental interpretation is the best tool that can unite with ecotourism in well-conserved areas but not environmental education as many people think. Challenges and threats continue to face the aspect conservation of cultural, biological, and environmental diversity as the growth rate of the human population increases. This high growth rate has led to the exploitation of natural resources through farming, mining, secondary services, and urbanization just to mention a few. (Stronza & Durham, 2008, p128). Some of these challenges that face projects set up for environmental conservation include; political interference, failure by the projects executers to study and apply scientific principles that are accurate and financial constraints ((Stronza & Durham, 2008, p129).
Knowledge and attitude of visitors on ecotourism
The tourism industry is a good income-generating source in a country. Knowledge on responsible tourism is of great importance to ensure the natural resources are conserved in order to continue attracting visitors to the host countries. This will bring great benefits to the local community/host country, travelers, and the tourist industries. Knowledge on environmental conservation is beneficial because it contributes to the development of ecotourism, in that it helps in coming up with useful tactics to show that ecotourism is an important section of maintained natural environments. This will provide the industry with a structure for making policies that will help in the linkage of ecotourism with land use and land use planning. Knowledge also assists the ecotourism implementers to take the industry as a tool that they can utilize to relate to economic growth, income generation, and improvements in the economy in the rural and urban areas (Karagiannis & Apostolou, 2004, par.3). To measure the attitude and behavior of the visitors on ecosystem self-administered questionnaires, interviews, and observations methods are used so that one can evaluate how visitors feel about the sites they have visited. The behavior of the visitors towards the environment is influenced by their attitudes, perceptions, and expectations of the areas they are visiting. (Sinha, p728)
Influence of environmental interpretation on environmental perception
The backbone of the growth of ecotourism is the conservation of the natural resources especially biological species and preservation of sustainable utilization of resources that can express ecological experiences to visitors, maintain the environment and benefit the host economically. A symbiotic relationship exists between sight viewing and environmental conservation and this can have a tremendous negative influence on the tourist if it is not well observed. To create a positive influence on the visitors, strict management of the environment has to be applied to ensure resources are used well and forever without their extinction (Wang & Tong, 2009, p 131). Environmental interpretation is a useful strategy that is responsive to manage the visitors by encouraging them to agree to more suitable characters in order to maintain the expansion of the tourism industry. Through a study carried out in Dartmoor National Park, results showed that environmental interpretation increased visitors’ information on the site. This addition of knowledge influenced the thoughts of the visitors on how they could change their attitude towards the environment and became more responsible and respectful of the natural resources (Kuo, 2003, par.1). Impacts on the natural environment either negative or positive on the visitors take place over several visits and not after a single visit to the place. The environmental interpretation effectiveness depends on understanding and evaluating the different types of behavior and attitudes towards the environment.
According to James (, p39), visitors enjoy and learn when they come across aquatic living things and this is a benefit to the marine wildlife. This is because the visitors tend to change their environmental attitude and behavior and desire /engage in the management of the marine animals. Visitors enjoyed benefits like mood benefits, relaxation, good feelings, and added quality education to their little information on aquatic species. Therefore, the marine wildlife industry, whose objective is to increase awareness on environmental conservation and make the visitors experience positive feelings is more likely to profit from well preserved aquatic species and natural environment (James, 2008, p40).
The environmental interpretation that does not favor or relate to the visitor’ expectations, personality, or experience will be of no benefit to him or her (Culvert, n.d, par.5) Therefore, the greatest aspect of interpretation of the environment is to influence or change the attitude of the visitors towards environmental conservation. This change of behavior can reduce the negative impact on the environment and contribute to environmental conservation thereby leading to successful visitor management techniques. However, there are consequences that are related to the misconception of environmental interpretation. Some of these bottlenecks are like damage to the environment due to undesirable behavior which may lead to the extinction of some species. To reform such damages a lot of costs have to be put into use. Therefore, to reduce these damages the right laws have to be enforced to prevent undesirable behavior and increase management which will deal with the losses obtained. (Calvert, n.d, par.7). On the other hand, degradation of the environment will lead to reduced enjoyment since most of the natural resources will have been misused and also due to lack of environmental integrity. This will lead to few visitors understanding and appreciating the environment, less experience, and enjoyment by the visitors, degradation of resources, and undesirable behavior from the visitors. All the above will force the eco-tourism industries to depend on hard management techniques leading to less enjoyment. Thereafter, environmental degradation that results in loss of enjoyment will contribute to decreased usage of the industry. Decreased usage will too lead to poor integrity on conservation of the environment since much of the heritage will have been damaged. This will sum up to decreased revenues to the host community and the industry itself (Calvert, n.d, par.12)
In summary, ecotourism can not grow unless proper conservation of the environment is well looked into. When the environment is well conserved it will recap to good environmental interpretation which will contribute to the learning and enjoyment of the ecological environment by the visitors. This will influence or change the behavior of the visitors who will desire to conserve the environment thereby becoming a benefit to the tourism industry. However, if there is environmental degradation that is there is poor management of the environment, it will lead to decreased enjoyment and utilization hence affecting the attitudes/ behavior of the visitors towards the environment. Secondly, environmental degradation will lead to the extinction of some important species be it animals or plants. Thirdly, there will be little interpretation of the environment and few visitors will learn little, and chances of conserving the environment to promote ecotourism will be reduced. This will eventually affect the economy of a country.
References
Amanda Stronza & William H. Durham, 2008. Ecotourism and Conservation in the Americas.
Hongshu Wang & Min Tong, 2009. Research on Community Participation in Environmental Management of Ecotourism. Web.
James E.S, 2008. Marine wildlife and tourism management: insights from the natural and social… Web.
Kuo, I-L, 2008. The effectiveness of environmental interpretation at resource-Sensitive tourism destinations. Web.
Margaret (Meg) Lowman, 2009. Ecotourism and Its Impact on Forest Conservation. Web.
Mike Merg, 1999. Benefits of Ecotourism. Web.
P.C Sinha,2005. Encyclopedia of Travel, Tourism and Ecotourism. Web.
Saren M. Calvert,n.d. Effects of the loss of interpretive programs in Bc Parks. Web.
Stefanos Karagiannia & Apostolos, 2004. Knowledge Management in Ecotourism. Web.
The International Ecotourism Society, 2009. What is Ecotourism? Web.