Costa Rica: The Accidental Green Tourist

Tourism is the world’s largest industry with nature-based ecotourism seeing rapid growth since its initial arrival in the 1980s. It is estimated by the World Tourism Organisation that nature tourism generates 7% of all international travel expenditure (Lindberg, 1997) and this figure will have increased rapidly over recent years. It’s increase in popularity is due to a number of factors; tourists becoming increasingly bored of the typical sun, sea and sand holiday’s, the increase in global awareness or environmental issues such as global

Costa Rica is a very beautiful and unique place. It was my first time going there and I loved it! It was much different than the United States in ways I didn’t mind or even enjoyed. We saw many things and went many places while we were down there. I am ready to go back again already and do new, exciting things. However, we did a lot while we were down there.

Human habitation can be traced back more than 10,000 years but it appears Costa Rica was sparsely populated and a relative backwater in the pre-Columbian era. There is little sign of major communities and none of the impressive stone architecture that characterized the more advanced civilizations of Mesoamerica to the north and the Andes to the south. When Columbus arrived near Lim¢¢n on September 18, 1502 on his third and last voyage to the Americas, there were probably no more than 20,000 indigenous inhabitants They lived in several autonomous tribes, all with distinct cultures and customs. Costa Rica 's only major archaeological site is at Guayabo, 30 miles east of San Jos‚‚, where an ancient city, dating back to 1000 B.C. and though to

I have had the opportunity to live in both Montana and Costa Rica, both which are synonymous with anything that might encompass the thoughts of adventure,environment and the outdoors. So much so, that their economy is centralized around eco-tourism. I always had Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshal Wilderness and Corcovado National Park right at my footsteps do to my father being a wildlife biologist.

I could hear footsteps, when I opened my eyes I saw my dad shaking me by the shoulder. That day we were had to get up at 4am and make our way to an entertainment park. We were already 5 minutes late. It was a morning of rushing around and a bit of frustration. After a short shower I grabbed a snack and jumped into the car. We had a 30 minute car ride ahead of us. This was not our car, we had rented one because we were on vacation in Costa Rica. I was in 7th grade then. It was the last month of the year and my dad had saved money for months for this trip it was our 3rd day into the trip with 4 days to go. My 2 brothers Ian and Gage came with us, Gage was only 5 years old, Ian was 13. Once we arrived at the Entertainment park we were right on time. The gates opened at 6am giving us just enough time to get some breakfast . Once we got there I sat down in the waiting room and waited for my dad to sign the waiver papers. After he finished signing we walked outside into a small area, there were harnesses

Ecotourism plays a vital role in a nations economy. Many factors entail whether a country can be successful economically. Ecotourism has thrived and failed, depending on how it was operated. Once a country accepts money from their government to begin ecotourism, they will be forever in debt. When the governments fronts the money, the government is in control.

The Gringo have been coming to Costa Rica for a long time. Why? Because they were attracted by the promise of wealth from coffee, French, German, and British entrepreneurs. They were attracted by how much money they could make for their families. The single Gringo men were very attracted to the single Costa Rican women, they even married some of them. Foreign tourist who visited the country fell in love with the country so much they moved there in hope for finding more peace which, they did indeed find. Committing to a life of harmony with the land. The effectiveness of tourism arrivals has stimulated major changes in the environmental awareness of the

Costa Rica is well known for protecting the environment and the renewable resources as reported earlier, Costa Rica has electricity that is produced entirely from renewable resources. Furthermore, Costa Rica has over 615 species, which is part of recent emergence from the ocean as well as protection and conservation in many places. Costa Rica has definitely done an excellent job of protecting their environment. The country landscape is unique and vastly different among the two coastlines, with three different types of forest, and gorgeous reefs, deep and moist valley, as well as a volcanic earth. The valleys are kept untouched, which is part of the ecotourism. This environmental and sustainability helps the environments as well as the economy for the Costa Rica people. Because tourism and sustainability have helped the country to become a major tourism destination, which promotes the experience of the natural and environmentally friendly hotels and resorts around the rich coasts. This promotes business growth while helping business owners invest their money back into many new environmental

Tourism is the main industry in Costa Rica. The number of international tourist visiting the country increased from 261,000 in 1986 to 779,000 in 1996. Some potential effect of tourism include damage to costal and mangrove areas along the beach, improper sewage and garbage disposal, disturbance of nesting areas of endangered sea turtles, and destruction of national forest for tourists developments. It is essential for the government to implement and enforce stricter regulations for the development of the tourist industry in order to assure the continued prosperity of the tropical dry-forests ecosystems. (Frankie, Mata, and Vinson

When it comes to the topic of ecotourism, most of us will readily agree that it is a less harmful alternative to mass-tourism and that it promotes responsible and low-impact travel to areas where flora, fauna and cultural heritage are the primary drawing power. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of what the impact of ecotourism actually is and what its long-term consequences are. Whereas some are convinced that ecotourism provides the basis for sustainable development, particularly in places that suffer from exploitation and excessive resources’ usage, and that could only improve the general conditions of the local people, others maintain that we are still far from true ecotourism, for many are those in the

As mentioned by Rimmington & Morrison (2009), the assistance from different parts of the world presents a new and diverse outlook for future research including theoretical innovations and revelations, cultural and environmental aspects, tourist destination and other ecotourism and recreational aspects of tourism and hospitality industry (Brotherton,

This paper explores a great number of academic research journals and databases on the impact that the tourism industry has on the countries in the Caribbean. Tourism impacts the Caribbean in three different sections. Tourism has a social impact that allows for increases in revenue, jobs, and service for the people living there. Tourism’s cultural impact allows the history and heritage of the Caribbean to be acknowledged and practiced not only here but around the world as tourists come and go. Tourism’s environmental impact effects the natural and geographical diversity that can only be found in these countries. Although tourism brings about many advantages in all three categories, there are still negatives attributes that appear from tourism that must be handled properly to maintain a successful industry. This paper examines 12 different research journals that suggest all of the positives and negatives of tourism in the Caribbean and how they can effect not only the tourism industry but the area in which they are practiced.

From an environmental perspective, it is apparent that the world is starting to realise that increases in tourism are having a negative impact on the environment. This is due to increases in energy consumption, which in turn heightens the effects of global warming (Neto, 2002). There are many controls that governments are trying to put into place, such as flight rationing (Liverpool Business School, 2009). However, it can be argued that these have not really begun to have a significant effect on tourism, as they are still insufficient to dampen demand. It may become a problem in future years, as the number of controls is likely to increase. Perhaps the largest environmental factor would be natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina (Cashell, 2005) and the tsunami that hit Asia in December 2004 (Birkland, 2006). These will impact negatively on people’s confidence in visiting places that have been hit severely by such disasters.

Among a hundred of developed industries, tourism is regarded as one of the most promptly growing fields in the world, and eco tourism is one of its ahead rising categories. There are more and more countries has been placing eco tourism sector priority over others for their market growth, because they acknowledge not only its ecological, cultural, but also economic values. More to the point, this sector has a sharp affiliation to the term of mindful or socially conscious tourism; However, it has not been fully understanding by many travellers and tourism associations? Mindful or also called socially conscious tourism is travel without taking advantage of local workers and cultures, but with minimal environmental influences. There is a fact that this industry has brought a huge beneficial to all the world countries’ economic, but people as tourism organization and tourists are exploiting

The Travel and Tourism industry is still one of the largest single businesses in world commerce and its importance is widely recognized. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange. In the face of many benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to air-lines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry