Ecotourism's Competitiveness

Synopsis

Above is an image affiliated with Australia’s board of ecotourism and it is a significant representation of the kind of marketing that currently exists for the promotion of ecotourism. One of the largest dilemmas currently and potentially facing ecotourism in the future is whether or not it can sustain itself in an already incredibly competitive tourism industry. Whether hard or soft core ecotourists would consider themselves apart of the same tourism category, the most important distinction to make is that purveyors of ecotourism and traditional tourism are still dependent on consumers to stay in operation. This is an important distinction to make because it is incredibly difficult for ecotourism purveyors to compete with the billion dollar budgets that traditional tourism corporations have access to. The potential future of ecotourism could rest on the marketing decisions that many within the ecotourism sector make and also on the kinds of necessary concessions that will make ecotourism more appealing to the general population.

Application

The fact that ecotourism purveyors are unable to compete with the traditional tourism corporations (mainly lodging operations) on the same scale means that it will be difficult to attract a sustainable amount of the general population to justify continuing business operations. After all, even an ecotourism venture is still a business and in need of capital, unless otherwise supported by a not for profit or government organization. I personally believe that the ecotourism industry is approaching a crossroads, even if more and more of the global population is beginning to think more sustainably. This is because this portion of the general population is still relatively small and not capable of facilitating a large scale ecotourism industry. It is also important to note that I am not calling for a resource consuming ecotourism industry that simply replaces the current traditional tourism model, but I am suggesting that there will be many more economic and environmental benefits associated with a larger TRUE ecotourism industry.

In order to achieve this larger and more adept ecotourism industry, there is going to be a significant amount of people, time, and capital spent on promoting the benefits of ecotourism and making it MORE appealing to consumers. Currently, I do not feel that there is a significant portion of North Americans who would prefer to engage in ecotourism as there would be those who would prefer to participate in the traditional tourism model. I for one believe that special concessions need to be made by local governments or some other form of power to assist in increasing the popularity and understanding of ecotourism and its benefits. Just one example is the idea of a proposed tax break for participating in ecotourism. The United States government has acknowledged that giving donations to those in need is worthy of a tax break, and converting to newer and more efficient forms of alternative energy are worthy, so why couldn’t the argument be made that traveling sustainably is also worthy of some kind of tax break. This would then in turn offer promotion to an industry in need of it, as well as offer those individuals who may have not been interested in ecotourism before some incentives to begin participating.