Critical review the opportunities and constraints of ecotourism development in Hong Kong - Thesis Example

Despite the diversified resources for ecotourism development in Hong Kong, the ecotourism industry has not germinated to become a prosperous industry. The government has already started to provide funding for the development of ecotourism in 2001 (Yeung et al., 2004). However, the ecotourism industry could not make any progress. Could it be attributed to the fact that our resources are not good enough to attract tourists? If not, what went wrong? In this context, the present chapter seeks to find the way ecotourism can capitalize the potentialities of the environmental resources including human beings for the development and growth of the economy.

The researcher attempts to review the resources available in the country in detail with projection of opportunities for further development in the sector and thereby economic development. The chapter contains factual information on resources in the country supported by researcher’s assessment of how these resources are turned into means of ecotourism development. An attempt is also made by the researcher to analyze the impact of ecotourism on country’s resources. It is desirable that the study of the identification of resources for ecotourism development must precede the exploration of whether the country is really having the potentialities to make use of the resources.

As understood by everyone, ecotourism is not supposed to endanger the environment and cultural heritage of a country. It must seek to find ways to enjoy the natural beauty of the country and should in no way affect the culture and lives of the local populace. One of the significant study by Cater remarked that during the 1980s, annual tourist arrivals in certain ‘ecotourism destinations’ are more than doubled and tourist receipts grew tenfold (Cater, 1994). In the early 1990s, one of the official reports of World Tourism Organization (WTO) predicted that there