Transformational Tourism
This was one of my favourite lectures. It was well presented, but it also hit at some pretty sensitive spots for me. I am a great lover of nature, and wish to see the natural world preserved. For some reason, eco-tourism was not necessarily a field I had considered going into before, but now it intrigues me quite a bit more.
One of the things that made me feel some sadness during this lecture was the discussion of disaster and extinction tourism. They are some of the more unsavory sides of Tourism in my opinion. The idea of encouraging people to come and see something before it is gone feels hauntingly heart-breaking to me. My immediate reaction in fact, is to say, instead of promoting this place because it will soon be gone, why aren’t we preserving it? Obviously, some places are harder to preserve than others, there are some things we have no control over, but shouldn’t we be doing our part when we can?
In terms of Eco-Tourism, the thing that strikes me and makes me want to become part of this industry is the idea that we could practice tourism while helping to protect the natural aspects of communities and educate the rest of the world about the importance of protecting these communities. The idea of disenchantment is interesting too. The idea that science has driven some of the magic out of our lives. How could we combine science and fact with romance and art to create a feeling of enchantment. I can say for sure that I am a logical person who finds enchantment in everyday things: the sounds of birds, the feeling of sunlight, the winding trails and interesting trees and plants on a hike. How can we help people to feel wonder and have more reasons to fight for our ecosystems and natural world?
