Abstract:Conservation finance in many African nations relies heavily on tourism. Some commercial tourism companies run conservation projects, funding: private, communal and public reserves; anti-poaching, breeding, and translocation programs; and local employment to gain political support. All this relies on successful marketing, to attract tourists. We therefore analyse how these enterprises market their conservation projects. We find that they market: wildlife viewing opportunities first; luxury and exclusiveness sec… Show more
“…As a result, the ecotourism revenue generated from entry fees has been dramatically declining. Despite an entry fee is the indispensable source of conservation funding ( Buckley, 2003 ; Buckley and Mossaz, 2018 ), the revenue collected from the entry fees were neither adequate nor feasible to reduce the rate of biodiversity losses in BMNP and other PAs in Ethiopia. Figure 2 Annual visitors' number from 1988 to 2017 (Source: Aseres and Sira, 2020 ).…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Some scholars (e.g. Togridou et al, 2006;Baral et al, 2008;Buckley and Mossaz, 2018) suggest options for generating additional funding sources such as conservation trust fund, donations, privatizations, and levying users' taxes. Because implementation of a new pricing policy may affect the visitation trend and consequently result in the decline of tourism income (Buckley, 2003;Casey and Schuhmann, 2019), the application of alternative pricing policy should rely on the analysis of acceptability, i.e., preferences and WTP (Thur, 2010;Murphy et al, 2018).…”
An increasing number of protected areas (PAs) are being established in many countries to conserve and preserve the wildlife species and to maintain earth's ecological balance, but in emerging economies such as Ethiopia, PAs are currently confronted with inadequate conservation funding that makes it tough to protect the remaining biodiversity. PAs, therefore try to use other financial means such as ecotourism to subsidize their financial shortage and nourishes the nexus between conservation and development. Estimation of visitors' willingness to pay (WTP) would be useful to craft strategies to strengthen the self-financing capability of PAs and hence realizing environmental and livelihood goals. In this study, the visitors' WTP for the proposed conservation fund in the context of Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) was estimated using a contingent valuation method. The finding indicated that 75% of visitors were willing to pay a conservation fee. The mean WTP was estimated to be US$7.40 for foreign visitors and US$1.00 for domestic visitors. The finding suggests that the implementation of conservation fee in addition to the existing entry fee helps to improve the long-term sustainable financing of PAs.
“…As a result, the ecotourism revenue generated from entry fees has been dramatically declining. Despite an entry fee is the indispensable source of conservation funding ( Buckley, 2003 ; Buckley and Mossaz, 2018 ), the revenue collected from the entry fees were neither adequate nor feasible to reduce the rate of biodiversity losses in BMNP and other PAs in Ethiopia. Figure 2 Annual visitors' number from 1988 to 2017 (Source: Aseres and Sira, 2020 ).…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Some scholars (e.g. Togridou et al, 2006;Baral et al, 2008;Buckley and Mossaz, 2018) suggest options for generating additional funding sources such as conservation trust fund, donations, privatizations, and levying users' taxes. Because implementation of a new pricing policy may affect the visitation trend and consequently result in the decline of tourism income (Buckley, 2003;Casey and Schuhmann, 2019), the application of alternative pricing policy should rely on the analysis of acceptability, i.e., preferences and WTP (Thur, 2010;Murphy et al, 2018).…”
An increasing number of protected areas (PAs) are being established in many countries to conserve and preserve the wildlife species and to maintain earth's ecological balance, but in emerging economies such as Ethiopia, PAs are currently confronted with inadequate conservation funding that makes it tough to protect the remaining biodiversity. PAs, therefore try to use other financial means such as ecotourism to subsidize their financial shortage and nourishes the nexus between conservation and development. Estimation of visitors' willingness to pay (WTP) would be useful to craft strategies to strengthen the self-financing capability of PAs and hence realizing environmental and livelihood goals. In this study, the visitors' WTP for the proposed conservation fund in the context of Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) was estimated using a contingent valuation method. The finding indicated that 75% of visitors were willing to pay a conservation fee. The mean WTP was estimated to be US$7.40 for foreign visitors and US$1.00 for domestic visitors. The finding suggests that the implementation of conservation fee in addition to the existing entry fee helps to improve the long-term sustainable financing of PAs.
“…The importance of the local population being an active agent, resource manager, who is able to make decisions and who controls activities that affect their own life is defended by Spinola (2006), although he considers this participatory planning model to be more difficult to be implemented and should always be analyzed in the long term to enable the creation of the business mass and the creation / application of environmental legislation. Buckley and Mossaz (2018) confirm the importance of tourism companies to finance the creation of private reserves, community conservation and protection of public areas, increase of local employment as well as the combination of two types of marketing: the main marketing that promotes proximity with the wild nature excelling in luxury and comfort and the conservation marketing that promotes the sale of articles to finance the conservation. Tourists are looking for new experiences and exciting challenges, and tourist destinations operators need to be able to allow a unique experience tailored to the interests of this type of tourists.…”
In the face of an increasingly competitive and global market, where communication channels are massified and where information sharing between consumers occurs in such a fast and uncontrolled way, brands need to reinvent their communication plans, with the aim of focus on the emotional side of the consumer. Thus, in this context, the integrated communication mix emerges as a competitive strategy to meet the needs of consumers. Therefore, the main objective of this chapter is to understand the role of the Integrated Marketing Communications in the context of an organization linked to ecological tours. This chapter presents contributions to the area of marketing and communication (integrated), tourism (ecological) and a response to the pandemic and post-pandemic scenario (i.e., covid-19), at the level of response strategies in the context of a pandemic in 2020 (through digital communication channels). A qualitative methodology was adopted, using semi-structured interviews with organizational managers in the context of ecological tours in Portugal (i.e., Ekoeasy case study). Ecotourism as a concept is neither easy to define, nor to implement. Ecotourism is a complex concept as it involves specialised niche markets that can share a lot of characteristics, preferences and motivations or vary for the same reasons. Future studies should allow to complement the present investigation, through empirical study and quantitative nature (i.e., questionnaires to tourist consumers in the North of Portugal).
“…For example, information can be provided on-site at the destination while encountering wildlife, but also early-on in the experience by agents selling wildlife-based tourism packages (e.g. Buckley & Mossaz, 2018;Lamb, 2019). Post-visit resources have also been recommended to allow tourists to follow-up on particular interests and conservation strategies, extending the conservation potential beyond the tourist experience (Ardoin et al, 2015;Hughes, 2011Hughes, , 2013Rattan et al, 2012).…”
Section: Link Experiences With Consumption Choicesmentioning
There is growing evidence that wildlife‐based tourism can be a valuable pathway to transform the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of tourists, if complemented by effective conservation messaging and proactive interpretive experiences.
Yet, such conservation messaging is not always a priority for many wildlife‐based tourism operators, who often avoid exposing happy tourists to the daunting biodiversity crisis. In this paper, we argue that failing to encourage tourists to do more on behalf of wildlife represents a missed opportunity for conservation.
Based on a comprehensive review of the academic literature, we show that conservation messaging is virtually absent from many mainstream wildlife‐based tourism operations, often failing to connect global audiences to conservation issues.
We found that the scholarly literature on the effectiveness of different techniques, approaches and contents of conservation messaging in wildlife‐based tourism is meagre at best. Yet, alternative forms of communicating conservation‐related messages are opening new avenues to broaden the conservation potential of wildlife‐based tourism.
We suggest a set of principles for improving the implementation of conservation messaging in wildlife‐based tourism operations in order to maximize their educational potential. We end by calling for further research efforts on the factors implicated in effective conservation messaging in wildlife‐based tours in order to pave the way for a new era of conservation‐oriented tourism.
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