Is it only about “the Big 5″? February 17, 2008
Posted by Ralph Pina in : Conservation, Tourism, ecotourism , 1 comment so far
Every once in a while I trawl through the research output of academia, specifically in the fields of ecotourism, sustainable tourism and ecotourism certification. The other day I came across the following article in the Journal of Ecotourism (vol 6, no. 1, 2007) entitled “Wildlife viewing preferences of visitors to protected areas in South Africa: Implications for the role of ecotourism in conservation“.
The article’s conclusions are particularly interesting, given the prevailing wisdom in the tourism industry that tourists to Africa are only interested in seeing the “Big 5″ - leopard, lion, elephant, rhino and buffalo. Just recently we have been debating this issue in ecoAfrica, so the research is timeous and topical for us. I for one have always been loathe to accept that only the Big 5 holds any attraction to travellers to our continent. (more…)
