People who work in the tourism industry and most of the travellers who are used to surf the Internet for booking their holidays are now aware of specialty travel operators promoting sustainable, low impact, responsible, eco-tourism… but what do all these terms mean exactly? What is the difference between one and another?

Sometimes when I say I run an eco-travel agency, I get some puzzled looks, and I am asked what I mean exactly. I am not at all surprised about these reactions, as I imagine that people who book their holidays at their local high street travel agency have never heard about ecotourism at all.

I would say the above listed types of tourism have all in common the opposition to the mass tourism, and a revaluation of the authenticity of the travel experience, considered as a discovery of a new natural and cultural environment.
I will now try to write down some definitions; comments and objections are very welcome.

• Sustainable tourism

An uncontrolled growth of the tourist industry (especially in the developing countries) can lead to wild construction plans, abuse of the natural resources and pollution, and eventually to the destruction of that pristine natural and cultural environment tourists were attracted to in the first place. Governments need to set up some strict regulations to the tourist development, involving carefully planned projects focused on the preservation of the environment. This way the local economic system – frail and precarious in poor countries - will be able to sustain the development of tourism and enjoy the benefits without being overwhelmed by it.
I would say the use of the term sustainable is mainly related to the authorities’, entrepreneurs’, and operators’ behaviours, which should make sure the tourist development has a low impact on the natural environment and on the social system.

• Responsible tourism

Every time I find the term ‘responsible’ in articles about tourism I notice this is mainly related to the travellers’ behaviour: a responsible traveller is the one who shows respect and consideration for the nature, the people, and the culture of the country he is visiting. Hence the many ‘responsible traveller codes’ published all over the Internet, which include rules about keeping the environment clean, saving water, buying local products… and so on. These dos and don’ts lists are useful, but it is most important that travellers show a responsible travel attitude also while planning their holiday, operating an accurate selection of the destinations, tour providers and places to stay.

• Ecotourism

If we consider that most of the responsible travel operators have a ‘section’ on their websites and catalogues dedicated to ecotourism (mainly listing tour and activities in close contact with nature), we should say ecotourism is just a ‘branch’ of the responsible (or sustainable) travel. But if we surf the Internet we can notice that the term ecotourism is often used to refer to sustainable, responsible, even cultural tourism. (See the Wikipedia definition)

Following the International Ecotourism Year in 2002, the term has become very popular and has been used and abused, so that if we search the various terms on Google we will find the following results:

“sustainable travel” 504,000 results
“sustainable tourism” 1,200,000
“responsible tourism” 553,000
“responsible travel” 901,000
“ecotourism” 4,600,000 (plus its spelling variation “eco-tourism” 1,310,000)

With ecotourism we now mean a type of tourism focused on the discovery and preservation of the environment as a whole, including nature, society, culture, folklore, and the term is referred to both operators and travellers.

One of my favourite definitions of ecotourism is in an article of Allan R. Rhodes Espinoza, who offers this simple explanation: eco comes from the Greek word oikos, which means home. People/travellers should consider the whole world as their home, and behave accordingly.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 3:39 pm and is filed under ecotourism, responsible travel, sustainable development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.