University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature Tourism is the world’s largest growth industry with no signs of slowing down in the 21st century (UNEP, 2002). (The peak was in the year 2000 - In the year 2001 there was a significant decline because of the terrorist attack on September 11). Proceeds from international tourism have increased by an average of 9 per cent annually for the past 16 years to reach US$476 billion in 2000. During the same period, international arrivals rose by a yearly average of 4.6 per cent to reach 698 million in 2000. WTO forecasts that international arrivals will top one billion by 2010. The WTO figures indicate that all the tourism activities account for over 4% of the Global GDP and that their combined direct or indirect contribution to global GDP are over 11%. Tourism-related activities provide 200 million jobs (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2000). The WTO has estimated that "alternative" (nature based) (7) travels - of which ecotourism is one of the forms - generated about 7% of all international travel expenditures in 1997. At the beginning of the 1990s the "alternative" (nature based) travel was growing at the rate of 10-30% per year (World Resources Institute/WRI, 1997). Others authors are approximately at the same level as Frangalli (1997), who proposes a rate of 20% per year. In 1995, the global value of ecotourism was estimated between US$ 17,5 millions (Fennell, 1999) and US$ 25 millions and they expected the value to reach US$ 50 millions by the year 2000 (Fennell, 1999). This increase in alternative tourism has been promoted by a broadening of the clientele for ecotours and by an increase in independent non-group travel. These new clients are also more aware of the environmental and socio- 7 Alternative/nature-based tourism: in some literature the name "nature-based" tourism is used for tourism branches such as adventure, wildlife, ecotourism and so on. We prefer instead to use the name "alternative". This is because "nature-based" includes almost all kinds of tourism, despite its mass, unsustainable, etc. 18
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature developmental issues of the destination they are visiting (Lew, 1997). This aspect should be a driving force for the next stages of development in ecotourism. When focusing on ecotourism as a sustainable development tool, which mainly concerns the biodiversity conservation, it is necessary to mention the global market share of tourism (see table 1). It is evident that the major part of tourists are now concentrated in Europe or in the Americas, but the major benefits from ecotourism are expected through biodiversity protection in "hot spots of biodiversity" (8) (Primack, 2001). Recently, the market share of the areas concentrating the major part of biodiversity is quite low. Therefore, from the marketing point of view, there is a great challenge for the travel industry to extent the focus more into these areas where market possibilities are abundant. And as mentioned before the biodiversity is a high value resource and could be included in a marketing strategy (Mercer, 1997). But this shift is already taking place. As the studies show, the East Asia and the Pacific have experienced the highest growth (World Almanac & Book of Facts, 2002). 8 Hot spots of biodiversity – “key places of the world, concentrating high biodiversity, they have high level of endemism and are endangered by extinction and degradation”. There are 25 areas named “hot spots”. For example – South-East Asia, Central America, Caribbic, Central Africa, Madagascar, Brazilian forests etc. This areas maintain 44% of worlds flora, 30% of worlds mammals and 54% of amphibias (Primack, 2001) 19
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University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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