Ecotourism and Environmental Sustainability: Principles and Practice

Citation

Wegner, A. (2010), "Ecotourism and Environmental Sustainability: Principles and Practice", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 22 No. 5, pp. 765-766. https://doi.org/10.1108/09596111011053855

The Ecotourism and Environmental Sustainability: Principles and Practice book takes on a challenging, often viewed as controversial, though not new topic. The book is divided into three parts with Part 1 focussing on the context of ecotourism and environmental sustainability, Part 2, the main section of the book with nine of the 14 chapters, presenting international case studies to illustrate different aspects of ecotourism and environmental sustainability, and Part 3 providing a future outlook.

This edited book provides an interdisciplinary approach addressing and discussing the notion of ecotourism and environmental sustainability. In Chapter 1, the editors clearly state the difficulties associated with the notion of ecotourism and alert the reader that no single universal definition based of ecotourism is accepted in the field. This chapter successfully presents a critical literature synopsis of ecotourism and ecotourists, however, environmental sustainability is only touched upon briefly. This chapter would have benefited by a deeper insight and discussion highlighting the inherent difficulties in analysing the environmental‐social interface which are the foundation blocks of ecotourism (Lehtonen, 2004). The next two chapters in Part 1 are aimed to raise the readers' awareness of broader issues in relation to ecotourism. Chapter 2 presents an introduction to the tourism and environment relationship, whereas Chapter 3 focuses on the environmental impact of tourism. Overall, Part 1 is a well‐written and easy accessible step into the topic. Taken this into account a broader coverage of topics would have been beneficial in order to better understand the complexity of ecotourism and environmental sustainability. One apparent omission is the role of policy, institutional powers and governance in relation to ecotourism.

Part 2 of the book provides a good coverage of case studies aiming to showcase various ecotourism ventures. The chapters as part of this part cover diverse impacts associated with ecotourism. The case studies included in the book showcase impacts in relation to wildlife, different environments (e.g. alpine, arctic, and tropics), as well as with regards to local communities. A rather unexpected but very useful addition to the list of case studies was the inclusion of botanic gardens. This reflects the current understanding that botanic gardens attract increasing number of visitors and indeed provide nature based tourism experiences (Ballantyne et al., 2008). Overall, Part 2 is diverse and interesting with some tangible “take home” management messages. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of ecotourism and environmental sustainability case studies addressing indigenous based tourism, marine tourism and tourism in fragile environments such as caving, abseiling or rock climbing could have been added. However, the included thematic case studies do provide a good overview of ecotourism and resulting issues.

The last part of the book, Part 3, succinctly draws conclusions based on the previously presented chapters. Chapter 13 “Exploding the myth of ecotourism” highlights the difficulties of ecotourism in the light of theory versus practice. This chapter is one of the key chapters in the book as it critically demonstrates difficulties in finding a definition, challenges and benefits with regards to ecotourism, as well as a view into the future of ecotourism. Matter of fact, the notion of ecotourism is a very contested “label” without the possibility of finding agreement in the short‐term (Brockington et al., 2008). In the last chapter, the authors conclude by summarising the lessons from the case studies and highlighting ways forward. This is chapter provides a vital part of the book as it draws together the different chapters into a framework what ecotourism encompasses. The chapter concludes with new directions in ecotourism research by suggesting taking a fresh approach in incorporating the work of geographers and sociologists. As such this chapter relates back to the editors initial intention of taking an interdisciplinary approach when discussing ecotourism and environmental sustainability.

In conclusion, through the incorporation of multiple case studies addressing various aspects of ecotourism, this publication provides a useful insight of ecotourism and what ecotourism can encompass. The text would have benefited by linking the three parts in a more comprehensively for example by including linking chapters with a theoretical underpinning. Furthermore, repetitions between chapters are present which can be labour intensive when reading several chapters at the time. Overall, congratulations to the editors; Ecotourism and Environmental Sustainability: Principles and Practice is good resource and introduction to ecotourism and environmental sustainability.