Ecotourism discourse: challenging the stakeholders theory

Abstract

Advocacy of ecotourism as a sustainable development strategy emphasising local participation has tended to espouse the so-called ‘stakeholders theory’, treating interventions as wholly material endeavours and assuming that rural community members will be motivated to participate primarily through economic incentives. Observing that ecotourism is both practiced and promoted predominantly (although not exclusively) by white, professional-middle-class members of post-industrial Western societies, this essay suggests that ecotourism can also be viewed as a discursive process, embodying a culturally specific set of beliefs and values largely peculiar to this demographic group that promoters, often unwittingly, seek to propagate through ecotourism development. As a result, local peoples’ response to ecotourism promotion may depend in part on how this particular cultural perspective resonates with their own understandings of the world. Thus, future research and planning should pay greater attention to the ways in which ecotourism discourse is perceived and negotiated by local actors. The analysis is illustrated through ethnographic analysis of ecotourism development in a community in southern Chile.

Keywords:

• adventure travel
• community-based tourism
• culture and ecology
• environmental attitudes
• nature-based tourism
• wilderness