University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature
• Economic carrying capacity is the ability to absorb tourist activities without
displacing or disturbing traditional local activities.
Mark (1995) recommended using indicator measurements such as
satisfaction-enjoyment, education learning, attitude-belief change and
behaviour-lifestyle change of visitors to minimise negative impacts from
ecotourism. Oliver (2001) has suggested other parameters in ecoturism
monitoring. These include:
• Amount of budget per capita allocated by government for conservation and
environmental management purposes
• Percentage of the protected areas’ surface in the country
• Ratio of number of tourists to the number of local residents
• Evolution of the number of tourism enterprises
• Number of tourism enterprises that posses an eco-label
• Number of tourists per surface of protected areas
• Number of rare species in ecosystems that are ecotourism destinations.
However, implementing these above mentioned-indicators is not easy. It
is really difficult to fix the guidelines for the 4 aspects of carrying capacity. It
depends on the efficiency of tourism planning and management. For example,
higher number of tourism can be accepted if tourism is well managed. It also
depends on the kind of tourists. It can be said that the higher conservation
awareness of tourists, the less impacts to environment or the more carrying
capacity. Therefore, ecotourism operator needs to concern much on capacity
building.
Some papers have made guidelines based on empirical studies for tourism
activities (Megan, 1993; UNEP & TIES, 2002). These include how to educate
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