Written
and published first in my ‘Out of the Box’ column in the ‘Financial Times, Sri
Lanka’ in March 2010, I repost it today without further comment.
Ecotourism
is a buzz word today. Almost everyone in tourism attempts to be ‘eco’ in some
way and that is mostly because the concept sells well with customers. Concerns
of climate change and global warming have now taken centre stage in discussions
on the future of humankind on this planet. Since a good majority of people have
moved on to urban environments and indulge in lifestyles that are remote from
nature, return to nature has become a fashionable pursuit as well.
All
of this goes to make the stage for most tourism operators to cash in, riding on
the ecotourism bandwagon. We often observe instances of when tourism activities;
air and ground transport, hotel, lodge and tour operations that do not come
within the conventional definition of ecotourism, being labelled as ‘eco’ centric
activities. Smart marketers often find ways to add some aspect of a conservatory
practice to what they do rushing to call and promote what is being done, as
ecotourism.
I had
in an earlier column, referred to late Robbie Collins, a tourism guru who lived
and worked in Asia and passed away earlier this decade, where he consistently said
that, we must not call tourism ‘names’. He was a zealous campaigner against the
use of the term ‘ecotourism’ in a loose way only limiting its domain of
influence to protected areas. It was indeed not the principles or the elements
that ecotourism engulfed that he was opposing. The concern was that the use of
the term by all and sundry, limiting its influence to specified areas could
lead to making a mockery of tourism operations that he held, have to be
responsible at its core, to mother earth and all living beings, organisms and
creations supported by her. With him, all tourism; regardless of them being
mainstream or niche, operated within or outside declared protected natural
areas, had to be ecologically sound and conservatory. They all needed to incorporate
aspects of responsibility to the natural environment and to people who are both
direct and indirect stakeholders while also being profitable business activities.
He called that brand of tourism with a generic name as; Good Tourism.
We
all have heard of ‘ecotourism’. We often refer to it as what some others we
know in tourism do. Some of us perhaps have even experienced the good, the bad and
the ugly in the practise of ‘ecotourism’ and have had various degrees of
satisfaction, enjoyment, dissatisfaction or disappointment. But unless one was
involved in a serious study of tourism or ecotourism, it not often that one
would attempt to understand what it actually entails to be in ecotourism.
Here
I bring to you a definition presented by the International Ecotourism Society,
the pioneer organisation responsible for bringing the concept and activity of
ecotourism into our focus two decades ago in 1990. It defines ecotourism as "responsible travel to
natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of
local people".
With
time other more descriptive definitions have come into the fore, such as this found
in the virtual encyclopedia of Wikipedia; “Ecotourism (also
known as ecological tourism) is responsible travel to fragile, pristine, and
usually protected areas that strives to be low impact and (often) small scale.
It purports to educate the traveller; provide funds for conservation; directly
benefit the economic development and political empowerment of local
communities; and foster respect for different cultures and for human rights”.
We
live in a country, which still retains a good percentage of its land area in
lush greenness, where it’s natural beauty and biological diversity is immensely
potent. With the right leadership and thrust, Sri Lanka
That
would enable us to present a uniquely Sri Lankan brand of good tourism, that
some may even venture to call ‘ecotourism’.
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