Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of the package tourists' costs are restricted to accommodation and transportation while
independent tourists, even though they spend less overall, are spending more money in
different sectors of the local economy and contributing more to the sustainability of the
industry. Hull's findings are supported by those of Place (1998), who also noted that
ecotourism can provide an economic base, but it does not happen
automatically, or without social and environmental impacts. If it is to be
sustainable, local populations must be allowed to capture a significant
amount of the economic multipliers generated by tourism. Successful
reduction of multiplier leakage requires local participation in development
planning and outside assistance with the provision of necessary
infrastructure, training and credit.
(Place 1998:117)
Tourism and recreation in natural environments can undoubtedly bring economic benefits
to both communities on the periphery and to the wholesalers and suppliers of such
experience if managed appropriately, and it is for this reason that increasing attention is
being given to the supply of the experience of wild nature (Fennell 1999). However, a
number of issues are starting to emerge with the potential impact of visitors not just on
the landscape but also on individual species (MacLellan 1999; Woods 2000; Orams 2002;
Hall and Boyd 2005).
SUPPLYING THE WILDERNESS AND OUTDOOR
RECREATION EXPERIENCE
In many ways the idea that one can 'supply' a wilderness or outdoor recreation
experience seems at odds with the implied freedom of wilderness. However, the tourism
industry is in the business of producing such experiences, while national parks and
wilderness areas, by virtue of their formal designation, are places which have been
defined as places where such experiences may be found. One of the most important
transformations in the production of leisure on the periphery has been the way in which
the initial construction of national parks as places of spectacular scenery and national
monuments for the few were transformed into places of mass recreation in the 1950s and
1960s and to places of tourist commodification in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly
through the notion of ecotourism.
A number of different meanings applied to the concept of 'ecotourism' (P.Valentine
1992; Hall 1995; Weaver 1998, 2001; Fennell 2001; Higham and Lück 2002) which
range from 'shallow' to 'deeper' statements of the tourism environment relationship:
• ecotourism as any form of tourism development which is regarded as environmentally
friendly and has the capacity to act as a branding mechanism for some forms of tourist
products
• ecotourism as 'green' or 'nature-based' tourism which is essentially a form of special
interest tourism and refers to a specific market segment and the products generated for
that segment
