Abstract
Some counties in the United States are turning to visions of sustainable development in response to increasing environmental problems caused by land use expansion and intensification. Sustainable tourism is one industry capable of fostering this change because of its relationship to all facets of a destination, from transportation and culture to natural resource management. This paper addresses a study that examined what support tourism destinations in Florida need from the Cooperative Extension Service to better utilize natural areas as responsible tourism attractions to benefit the local community, economy, and biodiversity (i.e., ecotourism). A nominal group technique, questionnaires, and interviews with local tourism professionals were used to investigate needs and support for ecotourism development. Results show, when nature-based tourism products are present, growth in ecotourism market supply is desired by tourism providers. Results also indicate that this growth is possible with the help of Extension agents, who would serve as educators on responsible tourism topics and facilitate partnerships between government, businesses, local residents, and visitors. Integrating these results into the (2013) multi-stakeholder framework developed by Waligo et al. for sustainable tourism development, this paper outlines reasoning and process for the Cooperative Extension Service to provide important support for a prevalent natural resource use.
Highlights
The rapid rise of global travel has led researchers to recognize the need to incorporate sustainable tourism development into destinations around the world, including the United States [1,2,3,4]
Previous research demonstrates empirically and theoretically that stakeholder involvement is essential for sustainable tourism development [22,23,24,25,28,31,41,42,43]
Because of variation in missions and priorities between different destination management organizations (DMOs) agents and other authorities, little guidance is in place to encourage stakeholder collaboration for ecotourism or guide the growth of a general sustainable tourism market in US municipalities
Summary
The rapid rise of global travel has led researchers to recognize the need to incorporate sustainable tourism development into destinations around the world, including the United States [1,2,3,4]. Is it about the benefit principles of sustainability and the goal of supporting current uses while maintaining natural resources for future generations [5]?. The Cooperative Extension Service has long been a major player in helping incorporate best practices and innovations into agriculture and natural resource management techniques around the country. The USDA directs the efforts of extension professionals, universities and extension agents play a leading role in researching and identifying how the CES can best support sustainable natural resource practices. In the last few decades, as new trends in land and resource use have emerged, the CES has started to apply their best-practice efforts to even more natural resource sectors including agritourism, ecotourism, and nature-based tourism
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