Cultural tourism, ecotourism, sport tourism, and other emerging types of tourism - Research Paper Example

?Running head: CULTURAL TOURISM, ECOTOURISM, SPORT TOURISM, AND OTHER EMERGING TYPES OF TOURISM . Cultural Tourism, Ecotourism, Sport Tourism, and Other Emerging Types of Tourism Insert Name Insert Grade Course Insert Tutor’s Name 29 April 2011 Ecotourism Ecotourism is responsible for travel to fragile, natural, and usually protected areas that conserves the environment and uplifts the standards of the local people (TIES, 1990). Ecotourism is mainly aimed at educating the travelers, soliciting funds for ecosystems protection, direct financial empowerment of the local communities, and creating cultural integrations and respect. Ecotourism is mainly concerned with enabling the tourist to be enlightened on the effects of human beings on the nature and to help them develop more understanding and love for the natural ecosystems. Generally, ecotourism will involve travel to sites where the plants, animals, and cultural heritage are the main attractions. Ecotourism is becoming a more popular form of tourism in which tourist visit wild and scenic areas such as rain forests, mountains, game reserves, wildlife conservancies for leisure and educational trip, and the tourist are mainly from North America, Europe, or Australia/New Zealand with their destination being mostly the developing countries (Eduweb, 1996). Ecotourism is concerned with integrating conservation, communities, and travel activities a departure from convectional tourism. According to TEIS (1990), those who implement and participate in ecotourism activities should do it in observances of the following ecotourism principles. First, involve travel to natural destinations, secondly minimize impact, thirdly build environmental and cultural awareness and respect, fourthly, provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts, fifthly, provide direct financial benefits for conservation, more so provide financial benefits and empowerment for the local people, and lastly, raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climate. Based on these principles, the ecotourism should be in position to analyze environmental and cultural factors, promote conservation through recycling, energy saving activities, avoiding and minimizing pollution, and providing economic gains to the local communities. Ecotourism developed from the global environmental movements in the late 1970s and by the early 1990s, ecotourism along with natured-based cultural, heritage and adventure tourism had transformed, with the global tourism industry being among the fastest growing sectors (TIES, 1990). Ecotourism has helped develop other forms of tourism, which borrow from the principles of ecotourism but at the same time, it differs from them. The following descriptions of other forms of tourism can illustrate how ecotourism differs with them though they share some similarities. Adventure travel is a form tourism that involves taking risk and it may involve using unconventional means of transport. The purpose mostly does not include conservation or benefit to local community. Secondly, sustainable tourism involves any form of tourism that does not reduce the availability of resources and does not inhibit future travelers from enjoying the same experience. Thirdly, responsible tourism involves tourism activities or operations, which minimize negative impacts on the environment. Fourthly, nature-based tourism is any form of tourism with focus on nature. Lastly, cultural tourism focuses mainly on interacting with and studying unique cultures (Untamedpath, 2007). The above terms and other terms such as green tourism, bio-tourism, and low impact tourism have been used in literature and marketing activities to mean ecotourism though they are not the same as ecotourism, an occurrence that confuse tourist and academics in their understanding of ecotourism. The ambiguity and misunderstandings related to description of ecotourism has led to exploitation of many unsuspecting tourists by countries, hotels, destinations, resorts, and corporation making huge profits but on the surface, the communities do not benefit, the environment is not conserved and at the end of the day, the environment is being degraded (Benefitsofecotourism, 2008). Literature review From introduction of the concept of ecotourism, various studies have been undertaken to access its progress and impact on the environment, economies, and cultural integrations. Benefits accrued from ecotourism are many but for every positive impact, there can be some setbacks, negative impacts, and errors in evaluating the benefit. Based on the principles of the ecotourism, the conservationists have in the past decades looked at ecotourism as a very successful method of conserving the environment, and at the same time, meeting the human needs. Though much promoted by the conservationists, the academic and people involved implementing ecotourism have not been able to formulate ideal conditions or evaluate fully how ecotourism can function effectively as a strategy of conservation. In studies relating to ecotourism, sometimes, the ecotourism principles in development and conservation have combined very well, leading to success. At other instances, they have failed to deliver benefits to either the people or the environment; with the gains and drawbacks in ecotourism varying at different instances and sometimes the short-term success achieved leading to degradation of resources in the long-term (Stronza & Pegas, 2008, P.2). With varied outcomes of ecotourism works in relation to conservation, researchers have always differed in their theories of the role ecotourism in conservation and how the economic gains interrelate with conservation and the cultural aspects. Due to the nature of the outcomes associated with the ecotourism, many of the studies on ecotourism focus on case studies of impacts of ecotourism on the local communities and natural resources, with the goal to analyze how and why ecotourism aid in conservation. In addition, some researchers evaluate how economic changes from ecotourism lead to conservation outcomes while others base their studies on social changes of ecotourism (Stronza & Pegas, 2008, P.2). In research on ecotourism works, the goal of the study must first be set in order for it to be evaluated and analyzed in terms of conservational, economic, and cultural purposes. Though ecotourism is smaller in scale compared to external effects such as energy prices, infrastructure, and terrorism, it represents a varied large intervention in the global tourism industry for an extended period and provides analytical opportunities in the view of tourism policies and tourism entrepreneurship (Buckley, 2009, P.1). Compared to mass tourism and other popular tourism, ecotourism is smaller in scale but as many impacts and issues leading to research interest from scholars in the last decades. In this paper, I will concentrate on reviewing environmental outcomes in relation to ecotourism works. The review will more specifically focus on ecotourism issues, which generate positive effects, and those that increase negative effects. Generating positive effects Communal conservation Different forms of communal land ownership are practiced in different countries. Most of communal land areas are very suitable for tourism activities, conservation, and utilization by the local communities. The local communities utilize the communal land in several ways such as subsistence farming, pastoralism, hunting and leasing out to multinational corporations. Most of these activities degrade value on the land thus when they choose to engage in ecotourism for conservation and economical gains, they impact positively to the conservation efforts. Ecotourism impacts positively by improving local awareness on the value of the natural resources, increases participation by local communities in benefits accrued from conservation and increases revenue available for conservation of the ecosystem. Nature rich areas with a lot of biodiversity are found in developing countries with increasing number of eco-tourists visiting the mountains of Nepal and Madagascar, the tropical forests of Costa Rica and Thailand, the savannah of Kenya and Tanzania, and the beaches of Belize and Sri Lanka (Untamedpath, 2007). The eco-tourists bring cash that is used for conservation efforts, improve incomes, and provide jobs to the families, tour operators, and communities. Many studies have been carried on community conservation efforts; for example, the two field studies carried in Brazil and Peru show the community and the environment benefit through ecotourism. According to Stronza & Pegas, 2008 The Brazil study illustrates sea turtle ecotourism that generates economic benefits for coastal communities. The case in Peru also generates economic benefits for a local community, but has the added goal of building local management capacity. Both cases provide empirical evidence for causal mechanisms linking ecotourism with conservation. However, in the Brazil case, economic benefits alone seem to account for conservation outcomes. In Peru, local participation in ecotourism management has also sparked collective action for conservation. (P. 2). Political influence Ecotourism can contribute to very positive effects on natural resources by influencing government policies and legislation towards promoting conservation efforts. This has happened in some countries, for example, in Madagascar, NGO-like organization has been mandated to run national parks, with of the proceeds emanating from tourism collections going to community projects. Moreover, the success of the initiative in 2004 encouraged the Madagascar government “to increase the area of national parks from 17000 km2 to 60000 km2 to reduce deforestation representing an increase to around 10% of the country’s total area” (Buckley, 2009, P.5). Private conservation reserves Benefits accrued from commercial ecotourism through private conservation reserves are more viable and easier to evaluate compared to other conservation ecotourism models. The private conservation reserves mostly involves up-market game or wildlife-watching lodges which generate enough income to run the reserve and conservation efforts (Buckley, 2009, P.10). These reserves are normally rehabilitated and restocked to meet demand and they have several staff to take care of them. Through their breeding programmes and restocking policies in some instances, the private reserves sell wildlife of high demand to other operators and public conservancies, earning extra income that can be channeled to their conservation efforts. The private conservation reserves are an emerging force in ecotourism that is proving to be of great importance in conservation efforts. According to Buckley “voluntary private conservation efforts, however, are currently proving to be critical in efforts to extend conservation management into areas of high agricultural value and areas with a history of private land tenure predating public protected areas, and also to improve levels of landscape-scale connectivity between public protected areas” (Buckley, 2009, P.10). This clearly illustrates how private conservation efforts are handy in environmental conservation. Generating negative effects Accumulation of waste Studies have shown that most ecotourism destinations are located in developing countries without proper waste management facilities and policies in place. The waste from ecotourism ventures sometimes accumulate and become health hazards and pose threat to environmental conservation and stability of the ecosystem. According to research carried out by Meletis and Campbell on the solid waste impacts of ecotourism in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, the following findings we made. First, the major hotels/lodges operating in the parks were generating quite a substantial amount of waste; secondly, most tourist and lodge owners were foreigners coming from cultures that contributed significantly to dumping; and even when the local recycling plant was operating at full capacity, residents in surrounding areas were not spared from environmental and health hazards. Lastly, the locals viewed the lodges and other major ecotourism venues as “benefiting much from tourism to Tortuguero with the residents bearing the costs related to increase in waste burden” (Meletis and Campbell, 2009, P.2). This kind or related scenarios are found in some ecotourism venues impacting negatively on the environment. Transport and climate change Most eco-tourists travel from urban communities in developed countries to rural communities rich in ecotourism opportunities. Therefore, they fly from one continent to another, and back after a short holiday contributing to air pollution, noise, and global warming. Therefore, for any given form of transport, it is relatively straightforward to calculate carbon dioxide emissions per passenger for a given distance traveled, and thus to calculate the carbon footprint of a specified tour itinerary (Buckley, 2009, P.15). Thus, as eco-tourists are traveling across the global in efforts to promote and enjoy ecotourism, they are also adding to the global environment degradation. Conclusion Ecotourism, being one of the fastest growing sectors in global tourism, is enabling nations to create new small-scale investment opportunities, job opportunities and enlighten communities on need to conserve the natural ecosystems. For ecotourism to reflect positive outcomes in environmental and economic fronts, policies and principles guiding the tour operators, communities, government, and other stakeholders in participation and implementation of the ecotourism must be observed. References Benefitsofecotourism. (2008). Benefits of Ecotourism. Retrieved from http://www.benefitsofecotourism.com/ Buckley, R. (2009). Evaluating the net effects of ecotourism on the environment: a framework, first assessment and future research. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 17, No. 6, pp.643–672. Australia. Griffith University. Eduweb. (1996).The Ecotourism Game. Retrieved from http://www.eduweb.com/ecotourism/eco1.html. Meletis, Z.A. & Campbell, L.M. (2009). Benevolent and Benign? Using Environmental Justice to Investigate Waste-related Impacts of Ecotourism in Destination Communities. Antipode, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 741–780. Stronza, A. & Pegas, F. (2008). Ecotourism and Conservation: Two Cases from Brazil and Peru. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 13:263–279. Texas A&M University College Station. TIES. (1990). What is Ecotourism? Retrieved from http://www.ecotourism.org/site/c.orLQKXPCLmF/b.4835303/k.BEB9/What_is_Ecotourism__The_International_Ecotourism_Society.htm. Untamedpath. (2007). Defining the Experience. Retrieved from http://www.untamedpath.com/Ecotourism/what_is_ecotourism.html. Read More