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| THE PIONEERS OF THE FRAGILE ECO-TOURISM AREAS——A Comparative Study between Eco-tourists and Backpacker Tourists |
| ZHU Xuan |
| School of Tourism, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China |
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Abstract China's eco-tourism is weak in its construction of both market and attractions. Only by attracting strictly self-disciplined eco-tourists can the deterioration of the ecotourism attractions be avoided. The current concept of eco-tourist mostly blurred the essence of the group and expanded its connotation. Based on the research on eco-tourists, the author of this paper aims to define the most suitable eco-tourists for the fragile ecotourism areas in China. In the light of literature analysis, field work and second hand surveys which were jointly conducted by ISTC (International Student Travel Confederation) and ATLAS (the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education)in 2003, the author analyzes and compares the conceptions, motives and behaviors of the eco-tourists and backpacker tourists respectively. It is believed that there are strict eco-tourists and general eco-tourists by definition. The concept of general eco-tourist is widely used because it is statistically easy for researchers. But only strict eco-tourist can reflect the nature of eco-tourism. The author adopts the concept of strict eco-tourist, which is one of the important bases of the article. From the motivation comparison, the author finds both eco-tourists and backpacker tourists pursuing authenticity and paying great attention to conserving the nature reserves as well as preserving the social integrity of the culturally vulnerable area. In terms of behaviors, issues such as the duration of destination stay, tourist expenditure, activity preference, environmental behavior, facility choice, seasonal selection, group pattern and local interaction are studied between the eco-tourist and the backpacker tourist. Compared with the mass tourists, the two groups of tourists both stay longer in destinations, spend more money on the ground level, prefer physically intensive activities, protect the environment consciously, advocate the harmony of man and nature, use inexpensive accommodations and endure more non-comfort in service facilities but tolerate less congestion. Therefore, they choose low seasons to take their trips and keep their groups as small as possible. They absorb much more tourism participation of the local community and thus create golden opportunities for the local empowerment. They transform the local community ideologically more than economically. In conclusion, the author induces that backpacker tourists are natural eco-tourists. Under current situation when most Chinese don't have very strong environment consciousness, backpacker tourists will have demonstration effect for the local community and forthcoming mass tourists. Hence, backpacker tourists should be the pioneer tourists of the fragile eco-tourism areas in China and benefit the undeveloped places from the grassroots.
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Received: 06 April 2007
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2008, Vol. 23 
