Ecotourism

David A. Fennell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000049282
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

The new fifth edition of Ecotourism focuses on an array of economic, social and ecological inconsistencies that continue to plague ecotourism in theory and practice, and examines the sector in reference to other related forms of tourism, impacts, conservation, sustainability, education and interpretation, policy and governance, and the ethical imperative of ecotourism as these apply to the world's greenest form of tourism.

Building on the success of prior editions, the text has been revised throughout to incorporate recent research, including ecotourism taking place in under-represented world regions. It includes new case studies on important themes in research and practice as well as learning objectives in each chapter. David Fennell provides an authoritative and comprehensive review of the most important issues, including climate change and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Ecotourism continues to be embraced as the antithesis of mass tourism because of its promise of achieving sustainability through conservation mindedness, community development, education and learning, and the promotion of nature-based activities that are sensitive to both ecological and social systems. The book debates to what extent this promise has been realised.

An essential reference for those interested in ecotourism, the book is accessible to students, but retains the depth required for use by researchers and practitioners in the field. This book will be of interest to students across a range of disciplines including geography, economics, business, ethics, biology, and environmental studies.

Part I
The essence of ecotourism

This book is divided into three main parts (Figure P1). The first part discusses the nature of ecotourism and how it differs from other types of tourism, along with a more detailed investigation of the ecotourist. Part II focuses on the core criteria used to define eco­tourism, and Part III focuses on many of the main topics and issues that are important to ecotourism both in theory and practice.

Figure P1 The structure of ecotourism

Part I deals with the essence of ecotourism, or the nature of ecotourism. I have characterised this as travel with a primary interest in the natural history of a destination. In exploring this dimension recently I found assistance in looking more specifically at the literature on biology and natural history (Fennell 2012d). Natural history is that branch of science premised on observational rather than experimental practices. According to Bartholomew (1986: 326), ‘A student of natural history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants and animals directly . . . ’ From this perspective, Wilcove and Eisner (2000) add that natural history is broadly the observation of different organisms, including their evolution and behaviour as well as how they interact with other species.

Explained as such, ecotourists may be regarded as students of natural history. They are motivated to pay close attention through observation of organisms, their role and function within the environment and those of a more dedicated kind (hard-path ecotourists) do this through patient observation. Furthermore, it would seem logical to characterise ecotourists as naturalists rather than ecologists, because of the observational tendencies of the former and the experimental practices of the latter. (See Schmidley 2005 for a discussion on how natural history needs to become more scientific and theory-based.) Natural history, and those who practise it, is taken to encompass the following areas in the broadest sense: botany, general biology, geology, palaeontology and zoology. It follows that the ecotourist, according to this manner of viewing ecotourism, would be interested in these types of attractions, and not just wildlife as in the case of wildlife tourism. For those theorists looking for a line of demarcation between ecotourism and wildlife tourism, the foregoing may be of some use.

Part I contains two chapters. The first chapter focuses on the nature of ecotourism and, in particular, on investigating ecotourism as a distinct form of tourism as compared to other types. This includes an in-depth look at the roots of ecotourism as well as a series of different definitions that have been used in the past. Mass and alternative forms of tourism are also examined. The second chapter places emphasis on understanding the ecotourist, especially in regard to how this particular type of traveller differs from other types of tourists along the lines of motivations, expectations and behaviours.

There are questions about whether ecotourism is in fact a distinct market or not, and this discussion is examined at length. This discussion provides the background for a more specific look at the core criteria of ecotourism including: (1) the nature-based foundation of ecotourism; (2) the sustainability dimension of ecotourism from the perspective of conservation; (3) the human dimension of sustainability in the form of local participation and benefits; (4) learning and education as part of the ecotourism experience; and (5) the ethical imperative.

1 The nature of ecotourism

Learning objectives

1. To discuss the nature of attractions, and to highlight which attractions are most important to ecotourists.
2. To illustrate how Alternative Tourism is different from Mass Tourism, and to situate ecotourism in the former.
3. To make reference to the strong relationship that exists between nature-based tourism and ecotourism, but also why it is important to make a distinction between both.
4. To discuss the roots of ecotourism, and to introduce the core criteria around which it is defined.

In this chapter the structure of the tourism industry is discussed, with more of a focus on attractions as fundamental components of the tourist experience. Both mass tourism and alternative tourism (AT) paradigms are introduced for the purpose of exploring the range of different approaches to tourism planning, development and management. As a form of AT, ecotourism is introduced and defined, and emphasis is placed on exploring ecotourism’s roots; that is, how ecotourism has evolved over time. Initial steps are taken towards differentiating ecotourism from other forms of tourism through a discussion on the introduction of key defining criteria. This discussion provides the necessary backdrop from which to examine more closely the ecotourist, in Chapter 2.

Tourism

As one of the world’s largest industries, tourism is associated with many of the prime sectors of the world’s economy. According to Yeoman et al. (2006) tourism has had an average annual increase of 6.6 per cent over the last half century, with international travel rising from 25 million in 1950 to over 700 million by 2002. In 2018, the number of tourists crossing international borders reached 1.4 billion (up 6 per cent from 2017) – a number that is reported to be two years ahead of forecasts (UNWTO 2019). More specifically, and of interest to our discussion of ecotourism to follow, is the fact that in 1950 the top five travel destinations (in Europe and the Americas) held 71 per cent of the travel market, but by 2002 they held only 35 per cent. Yeoman et al. ascribe this to an increasing desire to visit new places, which in turn has been stimulated by an emergence of newly accessible destinations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific. The consistent and sustained interest in travel has prompted some to argue that tourism is now the summum bonum (supreme good) in the lives of countless people around the world. That is, if pleasure is what we yearn for most in our lives (this seems to be the conclusion drawn from many philosophical works), tourism seems to be one of the most popular manifestations of this pleasure-seeking mentality (Fennell 2018a). More on this concept in Chapter 2.

Because of this magnitude, tourism has proved difficult to define because of its reliance on primary, secondary and tertiary levels of production and service, and the fact that it is so intricately interwoven into the fabric of life economically, socio-culturally and environmentally. This difficulty is mirrored in a 1991 issue of The Economist:

There is no accepted definition of what constitutes the [tourism] 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), and 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.

It is this complex integration within our socio-economic system, according to Mitchell (1984) that complicates efforts to define tourism. Tourism studies are often placed poles apart in terms of philosophical approach, methodological orientation or intent of the investigation. A variety of tourism definitions, each with disciplinary attributes, reflect research initiatives corresponding to various fields. For example, tourism shares strong fundamental characteristics and theoretical foundations with the recreation and leisure studies field. According to Jansen-Verbeke and Dietvorst (1987) the terms ‘leisure’, ‘recreation’ and ‘tourism’ represent a type of loose, harmonious unity which focuses on the experiential and activity-based features that typify these terms. On the other hand, economic and technical/statistical definitions generally ignore the human experiential elements of the concept in favour of an approach based on the movement of people over political borders and the amount of money generated from this movement.

It is this relationship with other disciplines; for example, psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography and economics, which seems to have defined the complexion of tourism. However, despite its strong reliance on such disciplines, some, including Leiper (1981), have advocated a move away in favour of a distinct tourism discipline. To Leiper the way in which we need to approach the tourism field should be built around the structure of the industry, which he considers as an open system of five elements interacting with broader environments: (1) a dynamic human element; (2) a generating region; (3) a transit region; (4) a destination region; and (5) the tourist industry. This definition is similar to one established by Mathieson and Wall (1982), who see tourism as comprising three basic elements: (1) a dynamic element, which involves travel to a selected destination; (2) a static element, which involves a stay at the destination; and (3) a consequential element, resulting from the first two, which is concerned with the effects on the economic, social and physical subsystems with which the tourist is directly or indirectly in contact. Others, including Mill and Morrison, define tourism as a system of interrelated parts. The system is ‘like a spider’s web – touch one part of it and reverberations will be felt throughout’ (Mill and Morrison 1985: xix). Included in their tourism system are four component parts, including Market (reaching the marketplace), Travel (the purchase of travel products), Destination (the shape of travel demand) and Marketing (the selling of travel).

In recognition of the difficulty in defining tourism, Smith (1990a) feels that it is more realistic to accept the existence of a number of definitions, each designed to serve different purposes. This may in fact prove to be the most practical of approaches to follow. In this book, tourism is defined as the interrelated system that includes tourists and the associated services that are provided and utilised (facilities, attractions, transportation and accommodation) to aid in their movement, while a tourist, as established by the World Tourism Organization, is defined as a person travelling for pleasure for a period of at least one night, but not more than one year for international tourists and six months for persons travelling in their own countries, with the main purpose of the visit being other than to engage in activities for remuneration in the place(s) visited.

Tourism attractions

The tourism industry includes a number of key elements that tourists rely on to achieve their general and specific goals and needs within a destination. Broadly categorised, they include facilities, accommodation, transportation and attractions, as noted. Although an in-depth discussion of each is beyond the scope of this book, there is value in elaborating upon the importance of tourism attractions as a fundamental element of the tourist experience. These may be loosely categorised as cultural (e.g. historical sites, museums), natural (e...