ECOTOURISM...

Despite the huge growth in Ecotourism in recent years, there seems to be little agreement to what it actually is! On the most-part the 'eco' has simply become a pre-fix, or a marketing strategy to promote tourism in areas of unspoilt natural beauty. And in such cases, without careful management, tourism can have many negative effects on the society and environment.

Our own understanding of ecotourism is that it should contribute towards the sustainable management of ecological resources, and should be managed with sensitive consideration of its effects on the local community. We believe that it can only be termed as 'sustainable' if it is used as a resource to help the local community become more self-reliant, i.e. by contributing towards ecological restoration, education programmes, income-generating activities etc. In other words, it should help the local community develop alternatives to becoming dependent on the tourism industry for their livelihood.

Therefore the focus of our ecotourism project is our voluntary work programme, so that guests have an opportunity to participate in the project, to give something back to the host community and to distribute the benefit of their stay to as widely as possible.

 

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