Outline the development of global ecotourism over the last 30 years, Essay

Outline the development of global ecotourism over the last 30 years, What has fuelled its rise What challenges has it faced - Essay Example While the usual forms of travel are concerned only about the wants of the traveller, the focus of ecotourism is on the positive ways the traveller can impact the host country and its inhabitants. The impetus to the economic growth of the world provided by ecotourism prompted the United Nations to declare 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism to signify its importance. The underdeveloped countries can make significant economic gains through effectively utilizing ecotourism to generate employment and alleviate poverty. The seed of ecotourism was sown in the developed countries. The creation of National Parks in America was the precursor that evolved into the methods and structures of ecotourism over the years. When the Redwood National Park of California was created in 1968 to protect the redwoods from total depletion through continuous logging, local people economically dependent on such exploitation suddenly found themselves without a livelihood. However, the flow of tourists to the region increased and the loggers gradually became hotel owners, tour guides and contractors with some retraining by the federal government and their expertise about the redwood forests. In fact, this expertise was utilized for reseeding the redwoods and controlling fire and flood. Thus ecotourism developed to address the need for preserving the earth’s natural resources by creating a travel infrastructure that besides boosting tourism would take care of the economic needs of the local people in a sustainable environment. The idea of ecotourism as we know it in the modern age started gaining ground from the 1980s. The idea possibly originated as a venture by a few entrepreneurs who saw business opportunity in the growing desire among the tourists to visit remote places not hitherto trodden where they could experience nature in all her unspoiled glory. These entrepreneurs set up eco lodges which