LIKE ANY OTHER BUSINESS?
Munt, Ian & Higinio, Egbert
Hosted in a new luxury hotel on the ecologically fragile outskirts of Belize City-the construction of which necessitated stripping the protective mangrove cover-two recent major...
...Hosted in a new luxury hotel on the ecologically fragile outskirts of Belize City-the construction of which necessitated stripping the protective mangrove cover-two recent major international conferences on eco-tourism highlighted the conflict between environmentally conscious activists and entrepreneurs who have seized upon eco-tourism as a convenient marketing tool...
...The whole idea of eco-tourism," he said, "is that it is like no other business...
...An incredulous anthropologist from Scotland's Edinburgh University could only express dismay at Hill's remarks...
...Eco-tourism, Hills argued, is just like any other business...
...The keynote speaker at the First Caribbean Eco-tourism Conference in 1991, Voit Gilmore from the American Society of Travel Agents, promised "millions of Americans just waiting to come...
...investor speaking at last year's First World Congress on Tourism and the Environment, promised money...
...Howard Hills, a U.S...
...Environmentalists consider such sentiments anathema to the very ethos of eco-tourism...
...In contrast to the Belizean government's view of eco-tourism as a way to develop economically and to earn foreign exchange, environmental activists see eco-tourism as an economic justification for ecological and cultural conservation...
...They argue that a smallscale, locally controlled and ecologically sensitive industry can neither sustain many visitors, nor be a big moneymaker...
...He boasted that his Overseas Private Investment Corporation would lend up to $50 million to any "environmentally sound" tourism development, conditional upon a 25% U.S...
...stake in the project...
Vol. 26 • February 1993 • No. 4
