ABSTRACT
The economic turmoil and restrictions on human movement precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted conservation efforts. Many conservation actors rapidly implemented various adaptive measures in response to the cessation of the nature-based tourism industry, the primary revenue source for much of conservation in sub-Saharan Africa. This timely preliminary study examined the innovative use of virtual safaris, a form of virtual nature-based tourism, as an adaptive response to the crisis. Eight in-depth semi-structured interviews and two written responses from a range of ‘conservation operators' provided insight into motivations, benefits, and challenges associated with using virtual safaris. This novel study found three mechanisms through which virtual safaris helped to alleviate the effects of COVID-19 with the potential to develop conservation resilience: 1) as a stopgap measure, 2) for revenue diversification, and 3) as a means of scaling ecosystem services. Virtual safaris provided a critical lifeline for conservation operators, created a new tool to connect with distant audiences, and strengthened relationships with donors. However, this research highlighted a need to re-evaluate the role of sustainable tourism within conservation, with transformative changes essential to enhance future conservation resilience.
ABSTRACT
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have accentuated pleas worldwide for urgent action in social, political, and environmental matters. Many of these appeals portray the pandemic as a "wake-up call” to the many long-standing problems affecting societies worldwide, including social and economic inequality, political struggles, and climate change. Indeed, calls for urgent environmental action have predominated in the wake of the pandemic, on one hand by presenting contemporary human-environment interactions as a root cause, and on the other, by comparing the pandemic effects to what could possibly occur if effective remediating actions are not taken in the short term. In this chapter, we broadly examine some relevant perspectives on the pandemic-environment relationship in the Costa Rican institutional milieu with particular focus on those who envision the pandemic as a turning point towards a more environmentally-sound development model in a country commonly portrayed as "green” and highly dependent on nature-based tourism. In so doing, we seek to provoke discussions on how these perspectives that leverage on the pandemic crisis can lead to social and environmental change significant enough to effectively redirect development pathways toward sustainability. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
Chilika, the largest brackish water lagoon in Asia, is a habitat of the Irrawaddy Dolphin (IRD) and a popular tourist destination for dolphin watching. However, this dolphin-based tourism has turned unsustainable due to the adverse impacts of tourism on IRD. This study uses SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) to analyze various internal and external factors that control IRD-based tourism in Chilika. Content analysis and sentiment analysis are also used to know the tourists' views regarding dolphin tourism in Chilika lagoon, and telephonic interviews with boat owners to determine the impact of tourism on local communities before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. SWOT analysis highlights existing opportunities and strengths of IRD tourism in Chilika, such as prevalent ‘positive' perception (48%) among the tourists and stable IRD population. 38% of tourists' perceptions were ‘negative,' corroborating inherent weaknesses and threats of IRD tourism, such as faulty marketing strategy, excessive tourist pressure, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews with boat operators reveal that the pandemic lockdown laid the financial situation of local tourist boat operators down. This study suggests multipronged solution approaches, for example ensuring the integrity of IRD habitat, optimal resource utilization, high service quality, and necessary infrastructure development to facilitate a sustainable ecotourism model in the lagoon. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
ABSTRACT
One of the few silver linings in the COVID pandemic has been a new appreciation for, interest in, and engagement with nature. As countries open, and travel becomes accessible again, there is an opportunity to reimagine sustainable nature-based tourism from a therapeutic landscape lens. Framed within the therapeutic landscape concept, this paper provides an autoethnographic account of a visitor's experience of three different natural landscapes in Iceland shortly after the country's fourth wave of the pandemic. It adds to the understanding of the healing effects of the multi-colored natural landscapes of Iceland. The natural landscapes of interest herein include: the southern part of the Westfjörd peninsula, Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, and the Central Highlands. In totality, the natural, built and symbolic environments worked in synchronicity to produce three thematic results: restoration, awe and concern, all which provided reduced stress, renewed attention, as well as enhanced physical and psycho-social benefits for the autoethnographic visiting researcher. Implications of these restorative outcomes for sustainable nature-based tourism in a post-COVID era are discussed. This paper highlights how health and tourism geographers can work collaboratively to recognize, protect, and sustain the therapeutic elements of natural landscapes, recognized as a cultural ecosystem service. In so doing, such collaborations can positively influence sustainable nature-based tourism development and consumption through proper and appropriate planning and development of such tourism destinations.
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Prior to COVID-19 heavy tourist pressure was causing environmental degradation and wildlife disturbance in Sri Lankan protected areas. The pandemic abruptly stopped visitation causing devastating impacts on the entire nature-based tourism sector. At the same time, the pandemic opened a window of opportunity to rethink the way the nature-based tourism is practiced in Sri Lanka's protected areas and bring it to the "sustainable track”. In this paper, we present a "position statement” to aid planning for sustainable and resilient nature-based tourism in post-pandemic Sri Lanka by validating and employing previous work on sustainable nature-based tourism planning, and information gathered through field observations and semi-structured interviews of nature-based tourism stakeholders in Sri Lanka. Future planning will require reflection and research with the aim of developing a more responsible and ethical approach to tourism activity and the viewing of wildlife. As the present economic and energy crisis is likely to prolong social and environmental difficulties, planning for a resilient nature-based tourism industry and appropriate community engagement is a priority. © 2023
ABSTRACT
The emergence of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, impacts livelihood strategies and conservation tools reliant on human-wildlife interactions, such as wildlife-based tourism and research. This is particularly relevant to great ape conservation, as humans and great apes are susceptible to being infected by similar pathogens. Evidence-based strategies are required to prevent infectious disease transmission to great apes and people involved in, or living close to, tourism sites. The development of disease-safe recommendations and their effective operationalisation require an understanding of what affects visitor compliance. Based on an international sample of past (N = 420) and potential future visitors (N = 569) to wild great ape tourism sites in Africa, we used an online questionnaire to characterise visitors' practices, assess expectations (e.g. about proximity to great apes) and identify key factors related to potential compliance with disease mitigation measures. This was implemented adapting a framework from health literature (the Health Belief Model;HBM), particularly focused on reducing COVID-19 transmission at an early stage of the pandemic. Visitors expressed less willingness to being vaccinated against COVID-19 (which, at the time our survey was conducted, had only just started being administered to very high-risk groups), wearing a facemask during trekking (although willing when viewing the apes) and quarantine after international travel before visiting great apes. Region of nationality, expectations about the visitor experience and perceived effectiveness of specific measures were important factors explaining variation in potential compliance across multiple behaviours. By gaining a better understanding of what fosters compliance with disease mitigation measures, we obtained insights that are essential for assessing feasibility, facilitating effective communication, and guiding implementation at great ape tourism sites with importance not only for COVID-19 but also for other infectious diseases more broadly, particularly at early stages of future pandemics. While requiring adaptive management as situations evolve (e.g. vaccination becoming more widely accessible), these will contribute towards a more sustainable visitor experience that can effectively deliver positive outcomes for people and biodiversity. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. © 2022 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
ABSTRACT
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it is difficult for travelers to choose suitable nature-based leisure travel destinations because many factors are related to health risks and are highly uncertain. This research proposes a type-II fuzzy approach with explainable artificial intelligence to overcome this difficulty. First, an innovative type-II alpha-cut operations fuzzy collaborative intelligence method was used to derive the fuzzy priorities of factors critical for nature-based leisure travel destination selection. Subsequently, a type-II fuzzy Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje method, which is also novel, was employed to evaluate and compare the overall performance of nature-based leisure travel destinations. Furthermore, several measures were taken to enhance the explainability of the selection process and result. The effectiveness of the proposed type-II fuzzy approach was evaluated in a regional experiment conducted in Taichung City, Taiwan, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This research aims to boost tourism development in natural protected areas through the classification of the tourism hiking trails based on biodiversity ecosystem services values. The Total Economic Value (TEV) approach was used as the main research method to estimate the monetary value of the various ecosystem resources in Abu Qubies Syrian protected area. Five main tourism hiking trails in Abu Qubies were identified in order to be classified based on the economic value of their ecosystem resources. The study findings highlighted the importance of protected areas in enhancing tourism activities, especially natural-based ones. Additionally, this research identified the most economically valuable tourism hiking trails in the reserve, thus providing a supporting tool for decision-makers regarding tourism development in protected areas. This study presents the importance of the conservation perspective of natural resources in protected areas without ignoring their physical monetary value that can help governments in boosting local communities as well as the national, regional and local economies.
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Climate change is impacting the distribution of climate resources upon which nature-based tourism and recreation depends. Accordingly, we examine the global distribution of climate resources from 1948 to 2016 using the Camping Climate Index (CCI), a composite index previously validated for camping and national parks visitation for 80% of the world’s major climate types found in the United States. Calculating the CCI globally, spatial and temporal analysis indicates that climate suitability differs greatly for nature-based tourism and that changes have occurred over the last 50 years in many destinations. Locations with higher latitudes and altitudes have primarily experienced shifts towards more favorable climate conditions. Conditions have worsened in tropical and subtropical regions such as central Africa, central Australia, and Southern Asia. Results demonstrate that the redistribution of global climate resources for nature-based tourism and recreation is primarily driven by warming temperatures and the increased frequency of extreme weather events in some regions. Study findings are of particular interest to destination managers and planners of outdoor locations susceptible to weather and climate change.
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The increasing complexity of tourism and sustainability offers opportunities and challenges among diverse stakeholder perspectives. The need for sustainable and nature-based approaches exists throughout the growing body of literature from among a number of dimensions and measures. One of the overarching goals of the paper is to examine whether tourists will choose a destination or hotel that is actively working to improve the environment while examining how Hawaii’s tourism is nature-based as well as other measures of sustainability while enjoying a slice of paradise in the Hawaiian Islands. This study explores tourism sustainability concerns in Hawaii, such as the influence of the tourist sector on the environment and will address if Hawaii should be recognized as a sustainable tourism destination. A survey instrument was developed where 454 respondents participated. According to the findings of this research, tourists visiting Hawaii support environmentally sustainable tourism practices leading towards a more sustainable tourist destination.
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Nature-based tourism (NBT) has become a popular tool for developing countries to achieve economic growth by the non-destructive use of their natural resources. COVID-19 has caused severe financial impacts on tourism-dependent areas. Revitalizing NBT is needed for economic recovery in those regions and can also help deal with mental health issues worldwide. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park (ZNFP), the first national park created in China, was selected to examine the important factors that influence visitor satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic and the relationship between satisfaction and visitors' environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) intention. The authors collected 788 onsite and online questionnaires from visitors to ZNFP during June–September 2020. This paper reveals previously underestimated factors and offers practical applications for park development at ZNFP and other NBT destinations. Visitors had a high level of satisfaction with the natural scenery of the park but were relatively dissatisfied with price reasonableness, park services, activities and events, and artificial attractions. Younger visitors, especially students, and well-educated visitors looking for environmental education opportunities tended to have lower satisfaction rates. Visitor satisfaction may have a positive but limited influence on promoting visitors' ERB intentions. We propose group-specific strategies for national park managers to attract more visitors and increase their length of stay.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly modified the social-ecological conditions of Spanish rural municipalities, for which the health crisis may represent a significant development opportunity. This work focuses on detecting the main factors responsible for the urban-rural movement of the population of the Madrid Region due to COVID-19 and its social-ecological consequences and on identifying the effect of the pandemic on tourism throughout the urban-rural gradient studied. A survey was designed based on 15 multi-choice questions completed by 55 municipalities in the region. The preference of internal urban-rural migrants and nature-based tourists for places far from the city and with a high degree of naturalness has been identified. Studies similar to this one lay the foundations for future research at different territorial scales and are useful tools to guide early decision-making in the face of unexpected risks with high social-ecological impact.
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The increasing pressure of ecotourism on wildlife in their natural habitats leads many wild animals to alter their behaviors. The restrictions issued in many places due to COVID-19 provide a rare opportunity to examine wildlife behavior in nature reserves with reduced human presence, and to reveal the impact of human visitation on the behaviors and fitness of local wildlife species. In 2019 and 2020 we placed trail cameras next to two natural springs in the Israeli Negev Desert, Ein-Avdat and Ein-Shaviv, located 9 km apart. Both sites serve as the main water source for local Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) populations, but Ein-Avdat is situated within a popular national park into which visitors' entrance was restricted due to COVID-19 regulations in 2020, while Ein-Shaviv is more remote and thus attracts only few visitors regardless of COVID-19 regulations. Our study revealed that during 2020, ibex in Ein-Avdat arrived to drink earlier in the day and the population's Female:Kids ratio more than doubled. These changes were not observed in Ein-Shaviv. We found that the daily number of visitors in Ein-Avdat affected the arrival time of ibex to the water pool. We conclude that the reduced number of visitors to Ein-Avdat in 2020 compared to 2019 may have allowed ibex to arrive in preferred hours, and may have contributed to the increased kid-to-females ratio. Our study shows that behavioral adaptions to human visitation in nature reserves might carry a high fitness cost.
ABSTRACT
Visiting natural environments could restore health and contribute to human sustainability. However, the understanding of potential linkages between restoration of visitors and nature-based tourism remains incomplete, resulting in a lack of orientation for researchers and managers. This study aimed to explore how visitors achieve restoration through nature by analyzing published literature on tourism. Using a systematic review method, this study examined destination types, participant traits, theoretical foundations, and potential restorative outcomes presented in 34 identified articles. A new framework that synthesizes relevant research and conceptualizes the restorative mechanisms of nature-based tourism from a human-nature interaction perspective was developed. Owing to the limitations in the theories, methods, cases, and the COVID-19 pandemic, interdisciplinary methods and multisensory theories are needed in the future to shed further light on the restoration of visitors through nature-based tourism. The findings provide a theoretical perspective on the consideration of nature-based tourism as a public-wellness product worldwide, and the study provides recommendations for future research in a COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 society.