Resource of the Week: Sustainable Tourism Database
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Sometimes, it’s just amazing what you find as a “by-product” of looking for something else. This week’s resource popped up in a web search I did for “green power.” The title looked so interesting that I just had to click on it and explore further. You’ll want to check this one out if you work with environmental information or are environmentally conscious.

The Sustainable Tourism Resource Database
Source: North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation
“The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s Sustainable Tourism Resource Database is a searchable online database containing information on tourism services and facilities in North America that link tourism activities with the conservation of natural areas.” Depending upon where you look, you can find all sorts of statistics about ecotourism and its share of the overall tourism market worldwide. (A good place to start is The International Ecotourism Society.) But all sources are in agreement that this particular niche keeps right on growing.

The whole topic is not without its share of controversy. Long story short: While ecotourism can bring in badly needed income to developing countries that have few other resources, it may result in undesirable environmental and cultural impacts. Also, ecotourism, nature-based travel, and sustainable tourism are not all the same. According to a Sustainable Tourism Info-Sheet found via the WWW Virtual Library on Urban and Environmental Management:

Ecotourism is “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.” Sometimes it is defined as a sub-category of sustainable tourism or a segment of the larger nature tourism market.

While nature-based tourism is just travel to natural places, ecotourism provides local benefits – environmentally, culturally, and economically. A nature-based tourist may just go bird watching; an ecotourist goes bird watching with a local guide, stays in a locally operated ecolodge and contributes to the local economy.

Sustainable Tourism embraces all segments of the industry with guidelines and criteria that seek to reduce environmental impacts, particularly the use of non-renewable resources, using measurable benchmarks, and to improve tourism’s contribution to sustainable development and environmental conservation.

Which brings us to this week’s resource. It’s actually quite easy to use this database, which “includes over 50 certification schemes, guidelines, codes of conduct or charters that are relevant to the sustainable tourism market in North America.” In the left navigation frame, you’ll see the various topics; click the small plus signs to expand the topics until you find what you want. Note that these are divided into four main categories (in boldface):
1. “Activity-specific codes of conduct which comprise principles for either the tourist engaged in a specific activity or for the tour operator who is involved in showcasing the activity.”
Example: American Birding Association Code of Birding Ethics
2. “Certification programs or lodging associations, that list the criteria for third party certification programs and/or ‘green’ lodging associations.”
Example: Sample Guidelines and Ideas for Guestrooms from the Green Hotels Association
3. “Global/general codes of conduct, principles and charters that are either developed at a global scale or general scope that can be applied to any destination worldwide.”
Example: Dos and Don’ts for Environmentally Conscious Eco-Tourists from the World Resources Institute
4. “Region specific codes of conduct and guidelines that relate to a specific geographic area location or geologic setting.”
Example: 8 Ecotourism Guidelines from the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association

Note that I found the left navigation frame somewhat quirky using Firefox/Mac OS X. When I scrolled down and clicked on a plus sign to expand a topic, the page jumped to the top so that I had to scroll down again; this happened every time I clicked on something. I’m not a big fan of frame navigation anyhow, and will generally use a context menu to open frames in their own windows.

Oh, and in case you missed it, there is a keyword search box in the top righthand corner of the main frame. You’ll find it on every page as you navigate through the database.

Related resources:

+ Conservation International: Ecotourism
+ The International Ecotourism Society Online Library
+ National Geographic Society Center for Sustainable Destinations
+ The Nature Conservancy: Nature Ecotourism and Conservation
+ Sustainable Tourism (WWW Virtual Library)
+ United Nations Environmental Programme: Sustainable Tourism Home Page
+ World Tourism Organization: Sustainable Development of Tourism

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.