Management Challenges of Ecotourism in a new location

Introduction

Presentation and definition

Every country has its own concept of strategies to promote tourism. This is the time to re arrange strategies which shift ecotourism experience to greater understanding, attitude change and more environment friendly behavior. Eco tourism is the fasted growing sector, with an estimated growth rate of 10-15% of one of the largest industries in the world Tourism. Ecotourism has been defined as:

Environmentally responsible, enlightening travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed natural areas in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and any accompanying cultural features both past and present) that promotes conservation, has low visitor impact and provides for beneficially active socio economic involvement of local populations (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996).

The world is under threat due to the global warming. Now days it has become easier for a tourist to visit any place. Ecotourism can create low impact on nature, conserve wildlife, develop job sector and generate money for the local community. Materials used in any ecotourism areas come from sustainable source. It offers positive experience for all people, build awareness and respect for the local culture and environment. Ecotourism provides information about the local political and environmental issues that tourists can apply when back to their own community. As well as the revenue can also be used for conservation of nature. So this is how ecotourism not only conserves nature but teaches people to be more conscious about the environmental pollution. Developing countries can make it a part of their national and local development by involving local community and distributing wealth.

However the word “Ecotourism” is dual word that combines Eco and Tourism. Eco means environment and tourism means activities of a person who is traveling from his own residence not less than 24 hours, not more than 365 days and not for any financial interests. The term ecotourism emerged in late 1980’s as a result of world’s acknowledgement and response to sustainable practices and global ecological practice. There is evidence that consumer tourism experiences had shifted from mass tourism to alternative form of tourism.

Three common concept of Ecotourism are nature-based, educational and sustainable (social and economic). There are different types of ecotourism nature based, nature travel, special interest travel, alternative tourism, agro tourism, culture tourism etc. More specifically it was claimed that the spectrum includes both, “Supply factors: nature and resilience of resources; cultural and local community preferences; types of accommodation & Demand factors types of activities and experiences; degree of interest in natural and cultural resources; degree of physical effort” pp57 (Wight, 1993).

Contributors to the topic

The topic Managerial challenges of ecotourism in a new location is based on a context of environmental management science. To establish a completely new ecotourism location is a very big challenge indeed, as there is certain necessity for implementation of established management theories, strategies, ideas etc. What should be the useful and preferable management strategies to develop and establish a new ecotourism spot? What are the possible barriers faced by the authority to establish a new ecotourism location and how to overcome those barriers by utilizing management strategic policies? The authority could be the Government or any private tourism organization, tourism developers and the new location could be urban, rural or any sort of remote area. So the central theoretical and the empirical ideas will have to be taken from the previous studies, previous researches. The study of management strategy is always taken under serious consideration, in order to run any organization (Lock, 1988). So, therefore, we have found several articles in some particular journals of the sustainable development and ecotourism context. We have found some generally effective and helpful articles for this topic in the “Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism”, the journal “Australian Geographer” and the book “Ecotourism: a guide for planners and managers, the “Journal of Sustainable Tourism” etc.(Bjork, 2011; Bohm, 2011; Cynthia L.M. Chin 2010; Marion, 1998; Pereira, 2012) The main source of learning about management theories, strategies and implementations will be really by the professors of tourism leadership development, the books by the tourism leadership scholars and the books of management studies, such as Enz, Cathy A., Daft, Richard L., Weihrich, H. & Koontz, H. etc. Short statement and plan for rest of the thesis So in brief, the statement of our theoretical exploratory thesis is to identify the challenges, difficulties, threats for the managers and leaders of the tourism developing industry, when they try to develop a new ecotourism location in order to bring a massive improvement for the economy of a country. Moreover, this theoretical exploratory article will produce the best possible ways to overcome those challenges, threats and difficulties when the managers of tourism developing organization will step up to develop a new location for ecotourism. In order to solve this problem, our group will be exploring the related management theories against the challenges to establish a new ecotourism location. Then by the assist of strategic management theories, we will provide a number of best strategic suggestions to implement them into the discussed challenges. Thus the outcome of this short thesis will produce an example for tourist developers on implementing strategic management theories in the ecotourism sector. Moreover, this study will assist the tourist developers to establish ecotourism in a new location and by this learning outcome the learners would like to continue further research practically to develop ecotourism in a specific natural location of the world.

We will show some examples of ways we believe would boost the ecotourism, pitfalls and dangers, way to success and some struggling. Since there is no subject of ecotourism in the readings we depend heavily on web searches. We will recommend different strategies to use in considering start-up of ecotourism and what are mistakes in our opinion. We will mention some other similar research that contributes to the area and helps clarify the issues regarding eco-tourism for the reader. Towards the end there will be a discussion part where we will look more specific on what managers should behave in an ecotourism context and what to avoid and what to emphasize on.

Review of the Topic

About the textbook definitions and knowledge of the topic

The subject touches the area of moral leadership and courage among leader. Courage is defined as “Courage is both a moral and a practical matter for leaders. A lack of courage is what allows greed and self-interest to overcome concern for the common good» (Daft, 2008). Ecotourism is a lot about the common good and what is best in the larger picture and not only short term profit. It requires courage to go against established business practices and expose yourself to the risk that might be involved in this kind of future oriented tourism. Further, moral leadership is about distinguishing right from wrong and doing right, seeking the just, the honest, the good, and the right conduct in its practice». (Daft, 2008). We mean that it requires a strong moral leadership to go into eco-tourism and there is a lot of responsibility involved with it. It requires certain personalities that go for the better good for all instead of selfish personal goals. It is further defined as: “Moral leadership doesn’t mean ignoring profit and loss, stock price, production costs, and other hard measurable facts. But it does require recognizing the importance of moral values, human meaning, quality, and higher purpose» (Daft, 2008). Here again the main point is that there is a higher purpose that leaders in this industry should have. There should be a different focus from traditional leadership and the leader is forced to think differently to meet all the requirements in eco- tourism. Eco-tourism is not mentioned in the reading for the subject.

Research and practice in the field

Eco tourism considered as conservation of natural eco system and as well as development of surroundings in a sustainable way. Research shows from less development countries to Latin America, Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia offers unique tourist’s experience depending on their tourism and that serve as their economic development. In recent days researchers have begun to explore how the local people develop their tourism activities and how they have been benefited from it. Ecotourism recognized as field of study in which tourists preferences are analyzed and how it is connected with the economics, politics and psychology. There are number of academics journal, publications, government organizations and university and colleges are devoted to study tourism and leisure activity. Some recent research topics may include different type of pollution air, land water affect the area.

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