Several problems related to ecotourism (high score reward)

The main direction and progress of ecotourism research at home and abroad

Starting from the impact of tourism on the environment, through the analysis of the existing eco-tourism research literature, this paper mainly expounds the relationship between eco-tourism and ecological environment, the concept and connotation of eco-tourism, the landscape ecology of eco-tourism and the geographical research of eco-tourism. The basic theoretical research of ecotourism mainly focuses on the concept, connotation and characteristics of ecotourism, and the practical research of ecotourism is mainly a case study of ecotourism planning in a specific region, pointing out the future of ecotourism.

Keywords: ecotourism; Research direction; Landscape ecology; geography

China Library Classification Number: F590. 1 Document Identification Number: A.

The concept of eco-tourism first appeared in 1980s, and was widely spread and developed in 1990s. 1999 China eco-environment tour marks the beginning of eco-tourism system engineering in China, which grows at a rate of 25-30% every year and becomes a hot spot of world tourism development. The development of eco-tourism has caused many "non-ecological phenomena" such as resource destruction and environmental pollution, and the problems in practice are related to the defects of theoretical research. As far as the existing literature is concerned, the current research progress in the field of ecotourism mainly focuses on the basic theoretical research such as the definition, connotation interpretation, function discussion and feature description of ecotourism. The study of ecotourism practice has formed two hot spots, one is the study of ecotourism development conditions, and the other is the case study of ecotourism planning in specific regions.

1 Study on the concept and connotation of ecotourism

With the popularization of eco-tourism in the world, experts and scholars all over the world are constantly exploring and enriching its connotation from different angles such as geography, nature, culture and social economy. The vague concept and connotation of eco-tourism lead to environmental, economic and social problems in the development of eco-tourism. The term ecotourism was first put forward by H. CeballosLascurain, a special consultant of IUCN and a Mexican expert, in 1983, and was officially confirmed at an international environmental conference held in Mexico in 1986. Since then, Elizabeth E.Boo, 1990), Gunn( 199 1), Canadian Environmental Advisory Council (CEAC)( 1992), scace(Scace 1992, Griffine & Usher/kloc-. Valentine (1993), All Cock, Jones and Lane & Domestic eco-tourism began in the 1990s, and domestic scholars Lu (199 1), Chen Chuankang (1996) and Guo Laixi (/kloc-0). The connotation research of eco-tourism mainly lies in three levels:

1. 1 As a concept of tourism development, eco-tourism is mainly put forward from the perspective of regional development, which includes economic, social, environmental and population development. Eco-tourism, as a concept of tourism development, holds that only tourism with the functions of protecting resources and promoting community economic development is eco-tourism.

1.2 Eco-tourism, as a tourism product, is mainly put forward from the perspective of tourism. Eco-tourism products refer to tourism products developed in areas with superior ecological resources, which can meet the needs of tourists to experience the ecological environment and enrich ecological knowledge and help maintain ecological balance. The development of eco-tourism products is to control the negative impact of tourism on the environment to a minimum and give full play to its beneficial role.

1.3 Eco-tourism, as a way of tourism consumption or behavior, is mainly put forward from the perspective of tourists. Whether it is a tourism development model or a tourism product, it will ultimately come down to the activities of tourists. The so-called eco-tourism consumption pattern or behavior pattern refers to that tourists take natural resources and ecological environment as their value orientation, use ecological principles to guide their behavior, and try to reduce the damage or adverse impact of their activities on the ecological environment, which is a responsible tourism consumption pattern or behavior pattern for the ecological environment. After the concept of ecotourism was put forward, many organizations and researchers in the world defined ecotourism from different angles. So far, there is no unified and recognized definition, and there are different opinions on the connotation of ecotourism. So it is easy to appear or encounter some problems in the development process. As a development concept, eco-tourism pays more attention to the development of ecological environment, while eco-tourism as a tourism product pays more attention to the development of regional tourism. Almost all tourism development is labeled as "eco-tourism". It leads to serious resource destruction and environmental pollution in tourist areas, and tourists seriously exceed the ecological carrying capacity of tourist areas. This shows that the vague understanding of the concept and connotation of ecotourism leads to ecotourism becoming an industry that threatens the ecological environment of tourist areas.

2 Study on the relationship between eco-tourism and ecological environment

In 1960s, people began to study the relationship between tourism and ecological environment, focusing on environmental impact, capacity and evaluation. The development of ecotourism is a double-edged sword. Hou Lijun (1995) and Peng Xixi (1998) believe that eco-tourism is generally optimistic mainly because it can earn huge foreign exchange, promote infrastructure construction, provide places for popular science education and scientific investigation, increase income and employment opportunities, reduce rural pressure and promote regional economic development. At the same time, the development of eco-tourism has also caused some damage to the environment, which has promoted the progress of environmental capacity research. In 1960s, Lapage (1963) first put forward the concept of tourism capacity, but he did not make further research. Since then, more and more people have begun to pay attention to the capacity of tourism environment, such as F. Lavison (1977) and D.Pearee (1986). Domestic Zhao (1983), Liu Hejin (1985), (1986), Bao Jigang (1987), Chu (1989), Feng (6544 Orams( 1995) put forward the evaluation index system of achievements. Orams index system is a great progress in ecotourism research, but its index system is too simplistic and has poor operability. Canadian Ross and Wall( 1999) think that the methods to evaluate the impact of tourism on the environment can include environmental impact assessment (E 1A), environmental capacity assessment, acceptable change limit (LAC), input-output analysis (CBA) and tourism impact management (VIM). They put forward the overall evaluation index system of ecotourism, which is more comprehensive and specific. Moreover, it is more operable (this system has been applied to the evaluation of northern Sahrawi tourist area in Indonesia), but their evaluation system is based on different aspects, and then the results are combined and analyzed, how to make up for the differences between the results, and the tourists themselves are not included in the grading index system, so the evaluation results may be biased. The research on the relationship between eco-tourism and eco-environment mainly focuses on the study of eco-environmental capacity, which is still in the initial stage of dispersion, small-scale and tentative application. At present, there is no recognized definition and conceptual system of tourism environmental capacity in the world, and there is no thorough theoretical explanation and systematic empirical research. There are only empirical results of tourist capacity in tourist areas based on "comfort" in foreign literature, and a set of natural ecosystem capacity calculation methods with different natural foundations has not yet been formed. In addition, the environmental capacity of tourism changing with time is rarely involved, and the research on the environmental capacity of tourism still needs to be further deepened, so that it can make a breakthrough in theory and be operable in practical application. The evaluation of ecotourism is still in the primary stage, and there is no unified basic model.

3. Study on the theoretical basis of ecotourism.

The basic theories of landscape ecology, industrial ecology, geography and economics have played an important role in the rapid development of ecotourism in the world in just over ten years.

3. 1 landscape ecology studies the direction of ecotourism. Landscape ecology mainly studies the spatial structure, interaction and coordination function of landscapes composed of many different ecosystems in a considerable area. Yang Guihua, Lv Yonglong (1998), Liu Jiaming, Yang Xinjun (1998) and Liu Zhongwei (200 1) think that landscape structure and its corresponding functional theory can provide theoretical support for functional zoning, structural planning and tourism facility design. The theories of ecological integrity and spatial heterogeneity, landscape diversity and stability provide theoretical support for shaping and controlling the aesthetic characteristics of the original tourist landscape and the visual aesthetic design of tourist facilities; Niche theory and landscape change theory provide guidance for determining the environmental capacity of tourist areas, setting monitoring points and adjusting the flow and spatial distribution of tourists through trails and trails, so as to realize scientific management of tourists.

3.2 Study on the Geographical Direction of Eco-tourism The study of regional eco-tourism development and ecological planning is the most researched and achieved field in China tourism geography. The research of tourism geographers involves tourism conditions and their geographical background, tourism resources, tourism environmental capacity, tourism transportation, tourism zoning, tourism route design, tourism regional system and many other contents related to regional tourism planning. Chen Chuankang (1988) expounded the close relationship between tourism geography and tourism earlier, and put forward the basic principle of tourism development, namely "the corresponding transformation theory of the internal structure of tourist areas"; Liu, Wang Xiang and others (1987), Lu (1988), Qin Guanmin, Wu and others (199 1) all made special discussions on the planning of tourism or tourist areas in their tourism geography works. Fan Jiaju proposed that tourism planning should be optimized from four aspects: planning ideas, research on tourism market demand, tourism products (including project development, utilization and combination) and tourism planning procedures; Guo Kang explored multi-dimensional tourism research and development methods, including space, time, psychology, behavior, economy and society, and summed up the development law of "point-line-network-surface"; Based on a comprehensive review of the research progress of tourism planning at home and abroad, aiming at some problems existing in domestic tourism planning, Liu Feng put forward a new idea of dynamic tourism system planning, which takes the tourism system as the planning object, takes the idea of sustainable development as the guidance and introduces the theory of system science.

3.3 Economic Research on Ecotourism Economists mainly use three tools to analyze eco-environmental problems: one is the theory of industrial structure; The second is the theory of property rights; The third is the "externality" theory. Among them, structural theory holds that resource allocation that has a lot of negative impact on the environment is usually associated with low-level industrial structure. Without upgrading the industrial structure, it is impossible to curb the trend of natural resource depletion and environmental deterioration. It emphasizes the importance of accelerating economic development and regards the threshold of ecological irreversibility as the bottom line of resource and environmental protection in the low-level development stage. The theory of property rights emphasizes the importance of regulating individual behavior, and takes clearly defining people's rights and obligations in the process of utilizing and protecting resources and environment as the key to regulating individual behavior. Externality theory emphasizes the importance of cooperation among all parties concerned, and takes win-win (or "* * * win") as the standard to measure the success of cooperation. Based on the principle of landscape ecology, the construction of tourist areas arranges the spatial structure of biodiversity and its habitat protection and restoration. On this basis, various restoration technologies and corresponding restoration projects are put forward. However, like many natural sciences engaged in sustainable development research, the existing landscape ecology does not study the economic feasibility of ecotourism research results, even never pays attention to the "cost and benefit" hypothesis, and rarely studies human social and economic systems. It only studies human beings as a species in the ecosystem, and it is not appropriate to do scientific research without considering "development". At the same time, eco-tourism embodies a new thinking concept of man-land relationship under the contemporary environmental crisis. Geographers have formed their own characteristics in regional eco-tourism planning, especially in resource development. However, regional eco-tourism planning is the basic field for tourism geography to serve local governments. Driven by the general desire of tourism development in various places, the demonstration of spatial competitiveness has become a key issue to be solved urgently, and the result is bound to be contrary to the study of landscape ecology, that is, the economic benefits are overemphasized while the ecological environment benefits are neglected.

4 conclusion

4. 1 Main features of ecotourism research

First, many different formulations of the concept of eco-tourism reflect different scholars' understanding of eco-tourism from different angles, which to some extent shows the richness and complexity of its connotation, and also shows the fuzziness and generality of the concept of eco-tourism. Eco-tourism in the most complete sense should include three aspects of eco-tourism. In these three levels, eco-tourism as a tourism development model is in a dominant position, and its implementation subject is the government, involving local residents, enterprises and other actors; Eco-tourism, as a tourism product, is in the core position, and its implementation subject is tourism (tourism enterprises); Eco-tourism, as a kind of tourism consumption or behavior, is in the basic position and practical content of eco-tourism, and its implementation subject is tourists. The relationship between the three levels is pyramidal (see the right). Figure 1 Three-layer connotation map of ecotourism (according to Song Ziqian et al., 200 1)

Secondly, the theoretical research of ecotourism is scattered, mainly aiming at a specific problem, and it is not systematic enough. The means used in the research are mainly the theoretical basis of tourism, and there is no recognized theoretical system. Moreover, the theoretical research results lag behind the actual needs and often lack maneuverability. The economic research of eco-tourism only pays attention to the economic development of eco-tourism and pays little attention to environmental protection, resulting in the phenomenon that tourism is not "ecological"; Eco-tourism ecology studies pay more attention to the environmental protection of eco-tourism areas, resulting in ecological diseconomy. Eco-tourism areas are facing various forms of conflicts, and there is an urgent need for a sound theory to guide the benign interaction mechanism between tourism development and environmental protection, so as to achieve a "win-win" between tourism development and environmental protection. This paper hopes to make a breakthrough on this issue.

Third, compared with theoretical research, empirical research is less. Because ecotourism is a highly operational industry, empirical research on ecotourism is as important as theoretical research. The international research on ecotourism has moved from concept discussion to case study, because the theory comes from practice, and only by summing up and exploring from a large number of practices can its theory be enriched. Moreover, there are relatively many qualitative studies, and the discussion of some problems stays on descriptive analysis, but there are few quantitative studies. The environmental carrying capacity is only a quantitative index, and its operability is poor.

Third, there are roughly two types of research fields. One is concentrated in underdeveloped countries and areas with fragile ecological environment. Kenya in Africa and Costa Rica in Latin America are pioneers in developing ecotourism. The main reason is that these areas have rich and unique resources to develop eco-tourism, the ecological environment is relatively primitive and the economy is poor. Local governments regard eco-tourism as an important means of poverty alleviation, and the contradiction between tourism and environment in these areas is more prominent. Second, some economically developed countries, such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe, have also done a lot of eco-tourism, but the research scope is limited to nature reserves or natural zones that are less affected by human beings. In China, nature reserves and biosphere reserves are also actively discussing how to develop ecotourism in combination with their own reality, but so far there is no successful precedent, just staying in the feasibility study, and there is no good combination of theory and practice.

4.2 Strengthen the study of eco-tourism. The study of ecotourism has only a history of more than ten years. In the past ten years, although many scholars and experts have made unremitting efforts and achieved certain results, there are still many problems in ecotourism both in theory and in practice. This research is still immature, and there are more unsolved problems than solved ones. First of all, as a tourism product, eco-tourism development aims at maximizing economic benefits, which is contradictory to the development of regional ecological environment. As an idea, eco-tourism aims at maximizing ecological benefits, which is contradictory to regional economic development. This requires theoretical workers to devote themselves to the study of ecotourism related theories and enrich the theoretical system of ecotourism. Eco-tourism should have a set of scientific "paradigm" theory to study the ecological design of tourism products, the rational layout of eco-tourism industry and the rational planning of eco-tourism zoning. We can give full consideration to the theory of regional economic development, the theory and method of ecological economy and the regional comprehensive research method of geography, implement "internal control and external development", and coordinate and solve the contradiction between economic benefits and ecological security in eco-tourism areas. Secondly, in terms of research methods, we should adhere to the principle of integrating theory with practice and strengthen the empirical study of ecotourism. Almost all industries in nature reserves serve tourism, and the boundaries of its tourism economic system are very clear. Similarly, the boundary of landscape ecosystem in nature reserves is naturally formed and easy to determine. Therefore, nature reserves are the main destination for developing eco-tourism and an important area for protecting the ecological environment. How to make the tourism and ecological environment in nature reserves develop harmoniously is an important topic in ecotourism research. Third, we should actively advocate interdisciplinary cooperative research in research methods. Ecotourism is comprehensive. It is a comprehensive discipline that integrates ecology, tourism, geography, sociology, management, environmental protection and economics, and involves many factors. At the same time, ecotourism is a high-tech industry, and technical feasibility is a necessary condition for the sustainable development of ecotourism. It needs the close participation of science and technology, and under the guidance of corresponding theories, ecotourism can be effectively developed.

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