Eco-Tourism

Eco-Tourism, a relatively new term in the travel industry, has become extremely popular recently. A lot of people, as shown in the webisode video, believe that just because a website or ad says "eco-tour," they are actually doing something good for the environment. Even with the ideas of low impact travel and staying at places which do limit trash and other environmental pollutants, the idea of staying in an "untouched by man" type of place is simply bringing the harmful effects of mankind to that place. Sure, it might be beautiful for the first few years, but eventually it will leave its mark.

Another issue, as mentioned in the question, is the air travel in order to get to these exotic locations. In today's super globalized world, everyone wants his or her chance to see it all. With relatively cheap airfare, this has become possible and has encouraged fast trips via the air to places that are not even that far away. I did a little more research on this to see what the environmental harm would actually work out to be. According to Boeing, a 747 burns approximately 5 gallons of fuel per mile. This sounds like a huge amount, except that there are a lot of people on the plane. With an average of around 500 people, the entire flight works out to about 100 miles per gallon per person. So overall, it works out to being about the same (per mile) as a family of four taking a trip in an average fuel burning car. (http://www.howstuffworks.com/question192.htm). Obviously not a good thing, but maybe not as bad as we had originally thought.

My final point is one in full support of the eco-tourism industry. By traveling, people are exposed to the issues that those in other countries face on a day to day basis. Although you may only be right in the touristy areas of another country, you are usually hard pressed to not notice some amount of environmental and social hardship around you. By taking tours of wildlife preserves and seeing nature in action, people may be affected by what they have seen and be more likely to act on it. I think that going on these tours and even simply advertising about them really helps to get the word out to the general public about all of the issues surrounding other areas of the world. Overall, I think that eco-tourism is a good thing, even if getting there and staying there may have small environmental impacts. It is a way for people to learn about cultures and issues in other parts of the world and hopefully will generate a response towards helping others throughout the earth.