Evaluation of Ecotourism Impacts in Costa Rica

It is the latest trend in travel. “Ecotourism is currently the fastest growing sector of the global tourism industry (Roberts and Thanos, 2003; Place 1998). Generally, it is defined as responsible tourism that lessens the damage done to the environment resulting in the conservation and preservation of a local economy. Hetzer (1965) identified four pillars for responsible tourism. These pillars are minimizing environmental impacts, respecting host cultures, maximizing benefits to local people and maximizing tourist satisfaction (Blamey, 2001).

It is specifically involved with traveling to natural destinations, building awareness on the conservation of the environment, providing perks for conservation practices as well as financial benefits for the local people.

Ecotourism is different from nature-based tourism. Nature tourism uses natural destinations to lure tourists and includes such activities as kayaking, mountain biking, fishing, camping, hiking and others. The biggest difference between ecotourism and nature tourism lies in the fact that the former contains educational elements and efforts are geared towards environment conservation.

There are four types of ecotourism: hard ecotourism, general or soft ecotourism, adventure ecotourism and educational ecotourism. Hard ecotourism focuses on activities that involve intense ecotourism such as non-hotel accommodations. Soft ecotourism is most common where tourists can observe nature and culture of the local people. Adventure ecotourism involves activities that are high risks such as bungee jumping. Educational tourism is one organized by educational organization complete with lectures and presentations.

There were two major factors that led to the creation of ecotourism. These are : the environmental movement in the 1970’s and 1980’s and a general dissatisfaction with mass tourism due to over development, pollution and insensitive foreigners (Honey, 1999; Orams, 1995). The combined effect of environmental awareness and great dissatisfaction of mass tourism led to ecotourism.

David Weaver noted that “interest in ecotourism, now widespread among tourism planners and marketers, is rationalized by a number of popular assumptions regarding the sector’s potential economic, environment and socio-cultural benefits” (Weaver 1999, 795).

Proper planning and implementation of these ecotourism programs must go hand in hand in order to attain success. It is important to point out that a number of ecotourism projects have failed because of lack of planning and implementation guidelines. The consequences would be disastrous in such cases because economic gains cannot replace the social and environmental damages that ecotourism could contribute.

A number of experts are uncertain over the role of ecotourism in the context of international development. A number of literatures written on ecotourism express either skepticism or optimism.