Comparação de programas de certificação em ecoturismo

Abstract

Tourism is recognized as a global industry and known to be a significant contributor to economies and employment throughout the developed and the developing world (Hawkins & Lamoureux, 2001). Certification has been promoted as a tool that both improves the performance of tourism companies and promotes more sustainable consumption (Synergy, 2000), it also has the potential to provide more sustainable tourism through the definition of standards and evaluation of its performance, as well as, it helps to distinguish genuine ecotourism practices, by protecting the integrity of the concept (TIES, 2007). Considering the increasing investment and demand for ecotourism, the goal of this study was compare ecotourism certification programs, carefully selected amongst those which are international references, so that, in the future, we can conceive a program of the same nature with objectives that adequatelly fit in with the Portuguese reality. Therefore there were four levels of analysis used as a method which can be highlighted, that were: the creation of a structure of criteria to assess certification programs, a selection of ecotourism certification programs, followed by an individual assessment of the programs through correspondence, level of demand and complexity of the programs related to the criteria structured for the analysis and, lastly, a multi-criteria analysis based on a selection of three programs (Ecotourism Australia, Nature's Best and Eco-Romania) using AHP method. However, the three programs presented do not exhaust, in any way, the range of existing examples of certification programs for ecotourism and sustainable tourism. The program that had the best overall classification was Ecotourism Australia, with 0.337, followed by Eco-Romania, with 0.333, and finally Nature’s Best, with 0.331, on a scale of 0 to 1. Despite the fact that Ecotourism Australia had the best overall classification, the final results of this study do not substantially distinguish any of the programs. This means that in the development of a certification program, this shouldn’t be the only model to use. All the three certifications programs should be taken into account depending on the indicators being developed. The distribution between ecotourism and sustainable tourism indicators is very different. In Ecotourism Australia the set of indicators that most contributes to its final classification were those from sustainable tourism. Nature’s Best and Eco-Romania show the exact opposite, they had greater weight in ecotourism indicators. When considering sustainable tourism indicators Nature's Best stands out in terms of socioeconomic indicators. Ecotourism Australia should be taken into account especially when considering environmental indicators and cultural heritage. And in the development of management Eco-Romania is a very good option. Ecoturism Australia is the best alternative regarding the development of ecotourism indicators when considering about spreading far and wide the ecotourism principles and regarding cooperation with local bodies. On the other hand, when we take the involvement of the tourists and indicators related to transports into account, the best program is Nature’s Best. The Eco-Romania program is a very good example in the connection between tourists and natural environment, in management of tourists groups and, in particular, regarding interpretation and educational activities. The program that has more variety of indicators for specific activities is the one from Sweden, Nature’s Best. In Portugal there is no official concept for ecotourism. The national institute for nature conservation and biodiversity (ICNB) is responsible for the nature tourism concept. ICNB considers nature tourism as tourism products (including tourism trade, environmental activities and accommodation services) that involve several practices such as: interpretation, contemplation and enjoyment of nature in its different forms, contact with the rural environment and with the people and traditions, as well as traditional houses. Any facilities’ or activities that want to be considered and recognized as nature tourism has to send in an application that has to go through this state run body, and have to comply with a set of standards, good practices and to participate in at least one conservation project. Although this type of recognition is very important, the ICNB is mainly responsible for the protected areas of Portugal. Portugal isn’t exempt from the growth of tourism, and ecotourism is becoming a very common and attractive concept. That is why it is essential to define the concept of ecotourism in and for Portugal. Since new programs do not have to start from scratch, they should rather be given the basic components and use them to build up a certification program (Honey & Rome, 2001). In Portugal the examples from these programs should be used to create a new certification program, with the support of several stakeholders, and it should be adequate to meet our National needs.