Eco Tourism In Galapagos And Its Impact Essay

Introduction

Since it was first introduced in 1970s, ecotourism is in general one of the fastest growing sectors within the global tourism industry (Eco Club, 2006). Reasons for this growth include the change in people’s taste of travel. Many of them have been bored by the usual tourist’s spots where most travellers visit. Another one is because of the rapid development of ecotourism countries. These countries developed better transport services and infrastructures within a given ecotourism destination which attract more curious travellers to visit. Being a nature-based tourism industry, ecotourism is considered as a brilliant development scheme which minimizes the costs and enhances the benefits associated with natural area tourism.

    Ecotourism has a very short history; ecotourism only became popular in the 1980s. (Benefits of Ecotourism, 2008) The origin of ecotourism was located in Africa when people could go on adventures tours around the jungles and forests. Governments all over the world started to link their environment to businesses. The popularity of ecotourism is a result of rising education on the environment. People want to know the environment more. Ecotourism was first introduced to teach people the benefits of conservation and protecting the planet. However, in recent years, these main ideas were neglected. There are critics suggesting that ecotourism can be damaging to the natural environment. A research done by Eco-system.org reveals that the damage can be from air pollution caused by more traffic in the place to the potential of disturbing soils and ecosystems through accommodation and activities on site. Therefore, in this presentation, we will be looking at different aspects of ecotourism in order to conclude whether pure ecotourism exists or not. We will be looking at three places (Thailand, Galapagos and Costa Rica) where ecotourism is practiced and from each case, we would look into each country’s growth in ecotourism so as to find...