Many countries around the world are looking to tourism as a sustainable solution for economic development and many individuals seek business opportunities in the tourism industry. Researchers in the field of anthropology and other disciplines alike have recorded findings of the environmental, economic and cultural impacts of tourism development that...
As a result of academic research into the effects of mass travel, an industry of alternative tourism has emerged. Application of this research has resulted in myriad forms of tourism, two of these being ecotourism and educational travel. Ecotourism represents a response to what is the destructive nature of the...
From May 1999 through April 2000, I interned with the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association (AWRTA), a non-profit organization that balances responsible tourism development with resource protection and community enhancement. I was assigned to a seven-member task force charged with evaluating the success of AWRTA's "Ecotourism Guidelines2" and was...
Shan-Mei, a Tsou aboriginal village in Taiwan, is widely known as a legend of environmental conservation, where ecotourism has been successfully combined with integrated community development. Indigenous knowledge containing "ecological wisdom" and decision-making based on consensus are perceived to be the greatest contributors to this achievement. I conducted three months...
In Prek Toal, a poor subsistence fishing village on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, the conservation organization Osmose is using ecotourism revenues to finance poverty intervention programs and promote conservation in a threatened ecosystem. This thesis examines local perceptions of tourism as a measure of Osmose’s success. Limited awareness of tourism...