Linking Culture and the Environment

44 Ecotourism and Nature-based Tourism
ecotourism. The lack of comprehensive planning for a wide array of tourism
opportunities over time is of concern since the distribution of tourism opportunities
shifts towards higher development levels (i.e. shifts to the right on
the ROS or TOS) but not towards less-developed tourism opportunities
(i e. development is rarely removed).
Tourism Opportunity Spectrum
The following discussion and adaptation of the ROS to a proposed TOS is
meant to further discussion about the need for a comprehensive planning
approach that considers a wide array of tourism opportunities over time.
The proposed TOS shown in Table 3.2 lists only five categories and should
be thought of as a continuum from ecotourism (e.g. primitive and undeveloped
conditions) to an urban environment (e.g. intensive, developed and
human-built environment). These five reference points are not equally distributed
along the TOS continuum since they where chosen as illustrations
of this concept, as adapted from the ROS literature. Furthermore, the goals
and setting characteristics in the TOS are general conceptual guidelines
and not hard and inflexible rules since there is a wide variety of tourism
situations and many exceptions and differences between tourism areas.
Some of the characteristics of the five reference points on the TOS are listed
here for illustration and could be expanded to include other characteristics
such as local economic conditions, available infrastructure or acceptable
social behaviours.
The management goals and six setting characteristics are used in the
TOS to classify the tourism category settings (Table 3.2) and are adapted
from the ROS, TOS and ECOS literature (Clark and Stankey, 1979; Driver
et al., 1987; Butler and Waldbrook, 1991; Robertson et al., 1995; Boyd and
Butler, 1996). The six setting characteristics provide the basis for the formulation
of specific indicator variables (e.g. user density per zone or number of
user–user encounters per day) and standards. The standards are the quantifiable
aspects of the indicator variable that are the baseline against which
the existing conditions at a site are judged as acceptable or unacceptable
(Stankey and McCool, 1990).
The current or proposed position of a site or area on the TOS can be
determined after defining the tourism setting type (e.g. ecotourism), different
levels of opportunities (e.g. remote wildlife viewing in a wilderness setting)
provided for visitors and the characteristics and indicators to monitor
the provision of those tourism opportunities. Then alternative TOS positions
can be evaluated along with the consequences of developing the site to
another TOS position. Through the identification of the positive and negative
regional social, environmental and economic conditions, the alternatives and
consequences of each position on the TOS can be evaluated for a given site.
Planners and managers then can decide to: (i) continue to provide the tourism
opportunities planned for visitors at a particular ecotourism site or area
(i.e. sustain the current opportunity position on the TOS); or (ii) increase the