Nature tourism

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Nature tourism likes to work with spectacular experiences to bring visitors closer to a natural area. “Do you hear piranhas screeching?” - Guided tour in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve , Ecuador

Nature tourism is a special demand segment of tourism , which is characterized by the fact that nature-related activities such as hiking , cycling , climbing , hunting , observing nature or enjoying nature are carried out. For this purpose, aesthetically attractive, symbolically meaningful and / or physically challenging natural and cultural landscapes or animal habitats are visited.

Nature tourism can be found on a large scale, especially in national parks and similar large protected areas. Here it sometimes plays an important role for the acceptance, financing and ultimately for the preservation of the areas, although negative effects on the ecological relationships (as well as sociocultural ones , if indigenous peoples are included) can hardly be avoided. So-called eco- tourism or gentle tourism tries to minimize these effects as much as possible. This applies, for example, to the certified wilderness areas of the European Wilderness Society in Europe .

Differentiation between "nature tourism" and "ecotourism"

A bear safari in the Carpathian Mountains is not really an ecotourism: the focus is on the natural experience, but the journey is unorganized and therefore mostly by car.

Nature tourism is often equated with ecotourism . Conceptually, it is more differentiated to define ecotourism as that form of nature tourism that is about ecologically sustainable, environmentally friendly travel.

Motivations of nature tourism

The motivations for nature tourism are as varied as its manifestations. These range from the interest in aesthetic experiences of nature and in the observation of animals and plants to the search for emotional security in 'native' cultural landscapes and the longing for wilderness as a world opposite or in contrast to the search for nature as a place of self-conquest and self-presentation.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dominique P. Buchmann: Nature tourism on the Merapi volcano (Central Java). Ethnological contributions to sustainability. Grin, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-8288-9098-9 .
  2. ↑ W. Strasdas, R. Zeppenfeld: Nature tourism and ecotourism. In: C. Antz, B. Eisenstein, C. Eilzer (eds.): Slow Tourism - The future of traveling between slowness and sensuality. Meidenbauer, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-89975-230-4 , pp. 55-78.
  3. ↑ Thomas Kirchhoff, Vera VICENZOTTI, Annette Voigt (ed.): Longing for nature. About the urge to go outside in today's leisure culture. transcript, Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-8376-1866-2 .
  4. ^ Giovanni Danielli, Roger Sonderegger: Nature tourism. Rüegger, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7253-0924-5 .
  5. ^ Ministry of Economics of the State of Brandenburg & Ministry of Rural Development, Environment and Consumer Protection of the State of Brandenburg (ed.): Guide to nature tourism. Potsdam 2008.
  6. ↑ Florian Carius: Destination natural landscape - where is the journey going? Empirical surveys in German travel agencies. In: Nature and Landscape. v86, n11, 2011, pp. 489-492.