EVSC 237: ECOTOURISM

1
EVSC 237 ECOTOURISM
2
Difficulty of defining tourism

• There is no accepted definition of what
  constitutes the industry any definition runs the
  risk of either overestimating or underestimating
  economic activity. At its simplest, the industry
  is one that gets people from their home to
  somewhere else (and back), which provides lodging
  and food for them while they are away. But that
  does not get you far. For example, if all the
  sales of restaurants were counted as travel and
  tourism, the figure would be artificially
  inflated by sales to locals. But to exclude all
  restaurant sales would be just as misleading.
• - The Economist. 1991

3
A distinct tourism discipline

• (Leiper, 1981)
• A dynamic human element
• A generating region
• A transit region
• A destination region
• The tourist industry
• Matheison and Wall (1982)
• A dynamic element (travel to a selected
  destination)
• A static element (which involves a stay at the
  destination)
• A consequential element (effects on the economic,
  social, and physical subsystems)

4
Defining tourism

• Fennell (2003)
• the interrelated system that includes tourists
  and the associated services that are provided and
  used (facilities, attractions, transportation,
  and accommodation) to aid in their movement
• World Tourism Organization
• A tourist a person traveling for pleasure for a
  period of at least one night, but not more than
  one year for international tourists and six
  months for persons traveling in their own
  countries.

5
Tourism Attractions

• What are these attractions?
• Cultural
• Natural
• Events
• Recreation
• Entertainment

6
How to study touristic attractions?

• MacCannell (1989)
• empirical relationships between a tourist, a site
  and a marker
• Lew (1987)
• Ideographic concrete uniqueness of a site
• Organizational size of the area
• Cognitive the feeling of being a tourist
• Leiper (1990)
• A person with touristic needs
• A nucleus
• At least one market

7

• What is the attraction in wildlife tourism?

8
Mass and Alternative Tourism

• Tourism has been both lauded and denounced for
  its ability to develop and therefore transform
  regions into completely different settings.
  Explain
• Other critiques of mass tourism
• Very little money spent within the destination
  actually stays and generates more income
• Not always operated with the interests of local
  people and resource base in mind

9
Consequently

• Alternative tourism
• Forms of tourisms that advocate an approach
  opposite to mass conventional tourism
• To ensure that tourism policies no longer
  concentrate on economic and technical necessities
  alone
• To ensure that tourism policies emphasize the
  demand for an unspoiled environment and
  consideration of the needs of local people

10
Advantages of Alternative Tourism

• Channels revenue directly to families (housing)
• Generates revenue for local community
• Avoids leakage of revenue outside host country
• Suits cost-conscience travelers or those
  preferring close contact with locals
• Promotes international-interregional-intercultural
  understanding

11
Advantages of Alternative Tourism

• Accommodation
• Attractions
• Market
• Economic Impact
• Regulation

12
Sustainable Development Tourism

• What is development ?
• What is sustainable development ?

13
Success of sustainable tourism

• McCool (1995) humans must consider the
  following
• How tourists value and use natural environments
• How communities are enhanced through tourism
• Identification of tourisms social and ecological
  impacts
• Management of tourisms impacts

14
Sustainable Tourism Resources

• Tourism Concern http//www.tourismconcern.org.uk/
  
• Tourism Industry Association of Canada
  http//www.tiac-aitc.ca/
• Federation of Nature and National Parks of
  Europe http//www.europarc.org/
• Others World Tourism Organisation
  http//www.world-tourism.org/
• Consultancy http//www.sustainabletourism.net/

15
Sustainability

• More than simply one aspect of the industry
• Accommodation
• Attractions and facilities
• Transportation
• Tourism product/behavior
• See Case Study 1.1 for example

16
Mass Tourism, AT, and sustainability

• Mass tourism
• predominantly unsustainable
• new developments
• Alternative tourism
• Theoretically, sustainable in nature
• Socio-cultural tourism
• Ecotourism

17
EVSC 237 ECOTOURISM
18
Difficulty of defining tourism

• There is no accepted definition of what
  constitutes the industry any definition runs the
  risk of either overestimating or underestimating
  economic activity. At its simplest, the industry
  is one that gets people from their home to
  somewhere else (and back), which provides lodging
  and food for them while they are away. But that
  does not get you far. For example, if all the
  sales of restaurants were counted as travel and
  tourism, the figure would be artificially
  inflated by sales to locals. But to exclude all
  restaurant sales would be just as misleading.
• - The Economist. 1991

19
A distinct tourism discipline

• (Leiper, 1981)
• A dynamic human element
• A generating region
• A transit region
• A destination region
• The tourist industry
• Matheison and Wall (1982)
• A dynamic element (travel to a selected
  destination)
• A static element (which involves a stay at the
  destination)
• A consequential element (effects on the economic,
  social, and physical subsystems)

20
Defining tourism

• Fennell (2003)
• the interrelated system that includes tourists
  and the associated services that are provided and
  used (facilities, attractions, transportation,
  and accommodation) to aid in their movement
• World Tourism Organization
• A tourist a person traveling for pleasure for a
  period of at least one night, but not more than
  one year for international tourists and six
  months for persons traveling in their own
  countries.

21
Tourism Attractions

• What are these attractions?
• Cultural
• Natural
• Events
• Recreation
• Entertainment

22
How to study touristic attractions?

• MacCannell (1989)
• empirical relationships between a tourist, a site
  and a marker
• Lew (1987)
• Ideographic concrete uniqueness of a site
• Organizational size of the area
• Cognitive the feeling of being a tourist
• Leiper (1990)
• A person with touristic needs
• A nucleus
• At least one market

23

• What is the attraction in wildlife tourism?

24
Mass and Alternative Tourism

• Tourism has been both lauded and denounced for
  its ability to develop and therefore transform
  regions into completely different settings.
  Explain
• Other critiques of mass tourism
• Very little money spent within the destination
  actually stays and generates more income
• Not always operated with the interests of local
  people and resource base in mind

25
Consequently

• Alternative tourism
• Forms of tourisms that advocate an approach
  opposite to mass conventional tourism
• To ensure that tourism policies no longer
  concentrate on economic and technical necessities
  alone
• To ensure that tourism policies emphasize the
  demand for an unspoiled environment and
  consideration of the needs of local people

26
Advantages of Alternative Tourism

• Channels revenue directly to families (housing)
• Generates revenue for local community
• Avoids leakage of revenue outside host country
• Suits cost-conscience travelers or those
  preferring close contact with locals
• Promotes international-interregional-intercultural
  understanding

27
Advantages of Alternative Tourism

• Accommodation
• Attractions
• Market
• Economic Impact
• Regulation

28
Sustainable Development Tourism

• What is development ?
• What is sustainable development ?

29
Success of sustainable tourism

• McCool (1995) humans must consider the
  following
• How tourists value and use natural environments
• How communities are enhanced through tourism
• Identification of tourisms social and ecological
  impacts
• Management of tourisms impacts

30
Sustainable Tourism Resources

• Tourism Concern http//www.tourismconcern.org.uk/
  
• Tourism Industry Association of Canada
  http//www.tiac-aitc.ca/
• Federation of Nature and National Parks of
  Europe http//www.europarc.org/
• Others World Tourism Organisation
  http//www.world-tourism.org/
• Consultancy http//www.sustainabletourism.net/

31
Sustainability

• More than simply one aspect of the industry
• Accommodation
• Attractions and facilities
• Transportation
• Tourism product/behavior
• See Case Study 1.1 for example

32
Mass Tourism, AT, and sustainability

• Mass tourism
• predominantly unsustainable
• new developments
• Alternative tourism
• Theoretically, sustainable in nature
• Socio-cultural tourism
• Ecotourism

33
http//home.fujifilm.com/efa/Earth From Above
34
Ecotourism Criteria and Context

• Weaver, 2001
• March 1, 2006

35
Ecotourism

• Who participates ?
• Where does it occur ?
• What impacts does it have ?
• How can it be managed ?

36
Emergence of Ecotourism

• First emerged as a term in 1973 (ecotour)
• Recognized from the start that the relationship
  between tourism and the natural environment
  tended to be one of conflict, but that the
  potential existed for a relationship based on
  mutual benefit

37
Ecotourism is

• tourism that consists in traveling to
  relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural
  areas with the specific objective of studying,
  admiring, and enjoying the scenery and its wild
  plants and animals, as well as any existing
  cultural manifestation found in these areas
  (Ceballos-Lascurain)
• What is the historical context within which
  ecotourism emerged?

38

• Mass tourism era (end of WWII)
• ?
• pro-tourism advocacy platform (1950s 1960s)
• ?
• Cautionary platform (1970s)
• ?
• Adaptancy platform (1980s) / alternative tourism
• ?
• Knowledge-based platform (1990s)

39
Additional definitions

• Ecologically sustainable (non-damaging
  contributing to protection and management)
• Accepts nature not transforming nature
  appreciation not thrill-seeking/physical
  achievement
• Improves the welfare of local people
• Educational

40
Ecotourism as tourism

• Certain forms of travel
• Spatial component
• Time component
• ?
• Domestic excursionists
• Domestic stayovers
• International stayovers
• International excursionists

41
Charismatic megafauna

• Ecotourist is interested in a certain rare
  species of flora or fauna than in the broader
  ecosystem in which it occurs
• Examples?
• Consequences? Implications?

42
Cultural component

• Why is this component included within the context
  of ecotourism?

43
Education

• Structured, assessed and non-assessed, learning
  opportunities
• Informal structure
• Education/learning/appreciation differences
  become blurred -gt is it still ecotourism?
• Interest/involvement spectrum

44
Sustainability

• Brundtland report (1987) development that meets
  the needs of the present without compromising the
  ability of future generations to meet their own
  needs
• Agreement? Yes. Difficulty? Bigger yes.

45
Start here
46
Why the difficulty in developing sustainable
tourism?

• Biocentric or anthropocentric?
• Constant capital rule (one generation should
  leave a stock of capital assets to the next
  generation that is no less than the current
  stock)
• Steady state sustainability (maintaining) and
  enhancement sustainability (environment
  experiences a net benefit)
• Passive vs active ecotourism

47
Why the difficulty in developing sustainable
tourism? (continued)

• Monitoring and implementation issues
• Indicators
• Benchmark and threshold values
• Short term vs. long term
• Influence of other activities (copper picture)
• Time lag between cause and effect
• Past trends not indicative of future developments

48
Textbook (Weaver 2001)

• Ecotourism is a form of tourism that fosters
  learning experiences and appreciation of the
  natural environment, or some component thereof,
  within its associated cultural context. It has
  the appearance (in concert with best practice) of
  being environmentally and socio-culturally
  sustainable, preferably in a way that enhances
  the natural and cultural resource base of the
  destination and promotes the viability of the
  operation.
• What are the aspects in this definition?

49
Ecotourism in the context of other tourism types

• Nature-based tourism
• Ecotourism is a subset of nature-based tourism
• Non-ecotourism, nature-based tourism
• 3S tourism (sea, sand, sun tourism)
• Adventure tourism
• Captive tourism
• Extractive tourism
• Some types of health tourism
• None of the non eco-tourism nature based tourism
  sectors are constrained by the requirement to
  have a learning component or to have the
  appearance of sustainability

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Ecotourism in the context of other tourism types
(continued)
51
Ecotourism in the context of other tourism types
(continued)
52
Ecotourism in the context of other tourism types
(continued)

• Hybrids
• ACE tourism (Adventure tourism, Cultural tourism,
  Ecotourism)
• NEAT (Nature-based, Ecotourism, Adventure
  Tourism)
• 3S (sea, sand, sun) tourism
• No when w/ mass tourism yes for some marine
  activities
• Alternative tourism and mass tourism
• Provided that there is adherence to the basic
  criteria, ecotourism could be part of mass
  tourism and part of alternative tourism

53
Ecotourism in the context of other tourism types
(continued)

• Sustainable tourism
• Ecotourism is a subset
• Note sustainable tourism can also encompass
  parts of mass and alternative tourism
• Extractive and non-extractive tourism
• Difference? Where is ecotourism?

54
Sustainable tourism world trends and challenges
ahead

• Yunis, 2003

55
Progress in sustainable tourism

• Need for a systematic planning approach now
  widely accepted
• Also growing as a research topic
• Increased adoption of voluntary initiatives
  (ecolabels, certification schemes, environmental
  awards)
• However the level of actual application is still
  limited to a few market segments, a few
  destinations, and a few market operators

56
Challenges

• Continued and unstoppable growth of tourism
• Liberal attitude towards its management
• Lebanon?
• MoT Tourism in Lebanon will follow steady and
  stable growth estimated around 20 to 25 in the
  next ten years