My job as a travel counselor has taught me the benefits and ill-effects of tourism. Though my job involves helping people in their personal and business travel arrangements, I even look after the ways to preserve the environment while arranging the transportation. There is always an environmental impact because of tourism and the impact can only be reduced by minimizing the visits to the nature friendly places. Tourists travel for enjoyment and spend leisure time. Tourism can be beneficial for a country’s economy and the local people, but at the same time it can cause shortage of the natural resources for native people. For example, water is a basic necessity and if there are many tourists travelling to the same destination, it will surely have a negative impact on the natural resources in that area.
My ecotourism business will be environmentally friendly as my business will ensure that the wildlife is not harassed by the tourists, will recruit the local people and purchase the local products, use local guides’ knowledgeable in nature, and give more prominence to the nature. As quoted by (Fennell, 2002) my business will be low impact nature tourism which contributes to the maintenance of species and habitats either directly through a contribution to conservation by providing revenue to the local community sufficient for local people to value and protect the wildlife heritage as a source of income.
References
Fennell, David A., (2002). Ecotourism: An Introduction. 2nd edition, revised, annotated. Routledge.
Patterson, Carol., (2007). The Business of Ecotourism, 3rd edition, illustrated. Trafford Publishing.
