Will ecotourism remain the less traveled road? That’s what Martha Honey, Director of the Emeritus of the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST) believes. Her book, which highlights case studies of ecotourism around the world, explains why. To Honey, ecotourism is in its adolescence.
She believes it will require a multitude of factors, such as the construction of a public that is both informed and critical to what is deemed ecotourism, for it to survive through the 21st century.
The book Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? by Martha Honey, brings about broader conceptions of the ecotourism industry, and its potential for taking over the very competitive and powerful tourism industry. Martha Honey’s book was first published in 1999 and updated with a second edition in 2008.
Martha Honey has a diverse educational and career background that directly contributes to her expertise on ecotourism. She served as the Executive Director of The International Ecotourism Society from 2003-2006. Additionally, on top of her 20 years of experience based in East Africa and Central America as a journalist, she holds a Ph.D. in African history from the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Honey spent ten years of her life in Tanzania, where she watched Tanzania shift from a socialist country to a capitalistic one, during which time its tourism industry flourished.
But at the time of the book’s conception, she noticed ecotourism was on the rise globally. Honey spent ten years in Costa Rica between the 1980s and the early 1990s. After her extensive stay, she realized the term was being used very loosely, blurring the lines between real ecotourism, and greenwashing scams. The lack of clarity on what constitutes ecotourism inspired her to begin researching internationally and compiling her findings into a book that was accessible to the public.
To her, ecotourism is “travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strive[s] to be low impact and (often) small scale. It helps educate the traveler, provide[s] funds for conservation, directly benefits the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, and fosters respect for different cultures and for human rights.”
The problem is that few ecotourist operations meet that standard. A lot of tourism in the market is mislabeled as ecotourism, but in reality are greenwashing scams. In 1995, an Iranian firm wanted to invest $50 million into building a hotel eco resort in Playa Grande, a nesting beach for the leatherback turtles. They promised to be a green luxury resort, and take environmental considerations into account. However, those claims were fraudulent. As a result, the public pushed back through protest, preventing the project from continuing.
She provides a set of standards to distinguish ecotourism from ‘greenwashing.’ Does the industry financially benefit and contribute to the local people, minimize its environmental impact, and respect local culture? These are a part of the 7 criteria she uses across her case studies.
Costa Rica is the “poster child” of ecotourism. With flora and fauna, remarkable landscapes, good government policies and good advertising, Costa Rica’s biggest foreign contributor to their economy was their ecotourism sector by 1993.
Honey takes on case studies from around the world, from the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Kenya, Zanzibar and South Africa and the United States, taking deep dives into the history of ecotourism in each region However, the most compelling case study is Tanzania. Honey expertly discusses the complicated history of tourism in two locations in Tanzania: the Serengeti National Park and Sinya village. Located in East Africa, the Sinya village and Serengeti National Park became a hotspot for ecotourism because of its diverse range of wildlife, including elephants, zebras and gazelles.
European colonial rulers as well as the United States became more involved in Tanzania post World War I & II. They lobbied to disregard the original colonial law that granted and acknowledged the Maasai’s right to live and conduct their cultural and hunting practices.These rights were stolen from the Masaai through when Maasai representatives were manipulated into signing their rights away. In the contract agreement, the Maasai had no knowledge of its contents. Honey expertly highlights a powerful quote by Parkipuny, a Maasai leader— stating, “ This is our land, from which we were illegally evicted to create these parks.”
The safari tourism had not been explored in Tanzania prior, leading to rapid growth. But tourism growth costs money. Tourism in Tanzania became so expensive through the excessive amount of mass imports needed to make tourism in the region attractive. This meant the locals could not enjoy any of the new tourism infrastructure in the 1970’s.
In her scorecard, she requires that ecotourism involves travel to natural destinations which Tanzania’s safari wildlife hotels and activities meet the description. There are some positives in her evaluation of Tanzania, such as the ecotourism building environmental awareness to the region and creating financial benefit for conservation of the Serengeti National Park. Overall, Tanzania is either partially successful or unsuccessful at meeting Honey’s criteria. One example is how Honey rated Tanzania’s respect for local culture. She rated it poorly because of the prejudice and treatment of not only the Maasai but other pastoralists in Tanzania.
Her spots of humor kept me reading. When Tanzania’s expensive tourist infrastructure began to fall apart in the late 1970s, Honey narrates the story of an American tourist who found himself in a bathroom with no toilet paper. The clerk reassured him that toilet paper would arrive from China in as little as two weeks.
If the book were written today or revised for a third edition, it is likely that Honey would give new attention to Tanzania especially, as their tourism sector’s impact on the Maasai has only escalated and ecotourism’s impact on all indigenous populations. Many locations of ecotourism initiatives directly interfere and negatively impact indigenous populations to this day, displacing indigenous people from the land and erasing their rights to the land. This much needed conversation is lacking in the non fiction literature market, very reminiscent of Martha Honey retaliation of the lack of information on ecotourism, prior to when she first published the book in 1999.
Ecotourism is bigger than ever in 2024, at a staggering 248.17 billion (USD) global market size in 2024. As the ecotourism industry continues to grow in popularity through the next few decades, being able to differentiate ecotourism from greenwashing is vital to the consumer and ecotourism survival. Honey has established a framework that both tourists and even governments can utilize to prevent being deceived by greenwashing tactics. Despite its age, the book still offers a great introduction to ecotourism. If you are in need of a tutorial of everything ecotourism, this is the best book on the market for it.