Ecotourism and nature-based tourism

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “eco­tour­ism and nature-based tourism”.

Eco­tour­ism is respons­ible travel to nat­ur­al areas that con­serves the envir­on­ment, sus­tains the well-being of the loc­al people, and cre­ates know­ledge and under­stand­ing through inter­pret­a­tion and edu­ca­tion of all involved (vis­it­ors, staff and the vis­ited)” ― Glob­al Eco­tour­ism Net­work, 2016; What is (and what isn’t) eco­tour­ism.

Eco­tour­ism is a type of tour­ism that has a very low impact on the nat­ur­al sur­round­ings. It aims to pro­mote con­ser­va­tion and edu­ca­tion, while provid­ing vis­it­ors with an oppor­tun­ity to exper­i­ence unique nat­ur­al land­scapes and wildlife.

Eco­tour­ism could be though of as a sub-cat­egory of nature-based tour­ism, which the Travel Industry Dic­tion­ary defines as: “Leis­ure travel under­taken largely or solely for the pur­pose of enjoy­ing nat­ur­al attrac­tions and enga­ging in a vari­ety of out­door activ­it­ies.” Nature-based tour­ism includes a wide range of out­door activ­it­ies, such as hik­ing, camp­ing, bird­watch­ing, and wild­life safar­is, that are very much embed­ded with­in nat­ur­al environments.

Both forms of tour­ism focus on explor­ing nat­ur­al envir­on­ments in a sus­tain­able and respons­ible way, with the goal of pre­serving them for future generations.

Eco­tour­ism and nature-based tour­ism are gain­ing pop­ular­ity around the world. They provide oppor­tun­it­ies for trav­el­lers to learn about loc­al eco­sys­tems and appre­ci­ate nat­ur­al beauty. By enga­ging in respons­ible and sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices through eco­tour­ism and nature-based activ­it­ies, trav­el­lers can feel that they are pro­tect­ing the envir­on­ment (and sup­port­ing loc­al com­munit­ies). (Both types of tour­ism have the poten­tial to offer sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits to loc­al com­munit­ies, as they offer incent­ives and oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­als to con­serve their nat­ur­al resources for a sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic benefit.)

Tags are inform­al; an after­thought to con­tent cre­ation. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog nev­er gets bogged down with tag­ging accur­acy or con­sist­ency. Feel free to com­ment on any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and dis­cus­sion and appre­ci­ates help­ful feedback.

Cardamom Tented Camp wins HICAP Sustainable Hotel Award for Climate Action


Cardamom Tented Camp wins HICAP Sustainable Hotel Award for Climate Action

Car­damom Ten­ted Camp in Cam­bod­ia has won the 2022 Hotel Invest­ment Con­fer­ence Asia Pacific (HICAP) Sus­tain­able Hotel Award for Cli­mate Action. Apart from cli­mate action, there were awards for build­ing preservation/adaptive reuse, pos­it­ive com­munity impact, and sus­tain­able design. The BHN Group, which runs the HICAP event, announced the win­ners on 12 Octo­ber. Sev­en judges, mostly […]

Read More Cardamom Tented Camp wins HICAP Sustainable Hotel Award for Climate Action

10th Rwandan cultural festival opens new community tourism body, promotes gorilla pledge


Red Rocks Cultural Festival 2022 Rwanda

The Red Rocks 10th Anniversary Cul­tur­al Fest­iv­al, August 26-Septem­ber 2, brought organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies togeth­er to cel­eb­rate and pro­mote Rwandan cul­ture, con­ser­va­tion, and sus­tain­able tour­ism.  As an advoc­ate for cul­ture and com­munity, Red Rocks hos­ted per­formers of all ages from the loc­al area.  Vis­it­ors from near and far enjoyed many tra­di­tion­al dances and music, keep­ing Rwandan […]

Read More 10th Rwandan cultural festival opens new community tourism body, promotes gorilla pledge

Rwanda’s neighbours to learn conservation, sustainable development practices


Rwandan man sits against a mud or clay wall smoking a pipe, looking at the camera. He's earing a wide=brimmed hat and a tan jacket.

Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment will launch the ‘Vir­unga Trans­bound­ary Ini­ti­at­ive’ in 2022. The Ini­ti­at­ive will share its con­ser­va­tion and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment con­cepts with neigh­bour­ing coun­tries fol­low­ing their suc­cess in Rwanda.  The Vir­unga Trans­bound­ary Ini­ti­at­ive will include com­munit­ies in Uganda and the Demo­crat­ic Repub­lic of the Congo that share the Vir­unga mas­sif with those […]

Read More Rwanda’s neighbours to learn conservation, sustainable development practices

10th annual Rwandan cultural festival to coincide with gorilla naming ceremony


Rwandan mountain gorilla

The 10th Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Fest­iv­al comes to Musan­ze dis­trict, Rwanda, August 26-Septem­ber 2, 2022, coin­cid­ing with the Kwita Izina gor­illa nam­ing cere­mony on the slopes of Vir­unga Moun­tain. Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Cen­ter will host the event at its premises in Nyak­i­n­ama vil­lage, Musan­ze dis­trict, Rwanda with addi­tion­al cel­eb­ra­tions in nearby Mukung­wa town and Kinigi, […]

Read More 10th annual Rwandan cultural festival to coincide with gorilla naming ceremony

Award-winning Anurak ecotourism experience reopens in southern Thailand


Bamboo rafting is an activity available at Anurak Community Lodge in southern Thailand

Anurak Com­munity Lodge, an award-win­n­ing eco­tour­ism exper­i­ence in south­ern Thai­l­and, has fully reopened fol­low­ing two years of COV­­ID-related uncer­tainty.  The 19-unit nature retreat, which won the PATA Grand Award for Sus­tain­ab­il­ity in 2020, and is Trav­elife Gold cer­ti­fied, offi­cially reopens 1 August with room enhance­ments, a refreshed food and bever­age menu – includ­ing south­ern ‘jungle’ […]

Read More Award-winning Anurak ecotourism experience reopens in southern Thailand

Bali is back, and so is the rest of wild Indonesia


Orangutans, Kalimantan, Indonesia

Since the long-awaited — but then very sud­den — eas­ing of travel restric­tions for travel into Indone­sia last March, Bali has seen a very quick return of trav­el­lers.  Along Bali’s south­w­est coast one will once again find the typ­ic­al beach- and Bintang-attrac­ted vis­it­or.  Beach­front hotels and beach clubs are exper­i­en­cing a book­ings rush from both domest­ic and for­eign travellers […]

Read More Bali is back, and so is the rest of wild Indonesia