Green Travel
Responsible tourism from an ecotourism point of view means doing more than arriving to a destination and plopping down your bags. The trend today, is to be responsible for your footprint on the place you are going to visit. It means making a commitment to leaving nature in all its splendor as you found it and without disruption. This is very simple to accomplish if you understand how to be a responsible tourism representative when you visit on a vacation.
1.) The first step has to take place in planning your trip. If you are committed to ecotourism there are some factors you have to consider when you book your trip. The first involves where you are staying. You should try to stay in a place that is sustainable and pollutes the environment as little as possible. Another consideration is your meals and shopping. If you are truly an ecotourist you will want to purchase your meals from local vendors and shop in local villages. This helps the community in which you are visiting.
2.) The next step is to consider adding volunteering to your tour. Responsible tourism means going beyond visiting a location but also adding to it. This does not have to be the entire scope of your trip, but you can engage in activities such as restoration of a forest. The tourist in this case would actually help plant new trees while visiting a pristine area in need of assistance.
3.) Finally, the ecotourist is essential to maintaining natural preserves and untouched regions because they want to visit these locations. The money raised by visiting these locations helps to ensure their protection by empowering the local peoples to care for it. One of the prime reasons for deforestation is to utilize the natural resource for income. Ecotourism to a jungle helps to defray the costs and can help to ensure these places are here for future generations.
I like these three ways of being a better ecotourist. The whole concept of going out of your comfort zone to do more for the environment and the local community is the way to go. We should be at the forefront at not only helping those people in areas where they have been empowered to engage in tourism but also get to influence those who have not yet had the chance to engage in tourism.
I agree with you Nyokabi! But before you can step out your comfort zone, you need to be intentional with your actions and thoughts. That should been the precursor to all of this. Thank you so much for the comment!