Criteria for ecotourism certification in Peninsular Malaysia / Mellissa Robat

Ecotourism is one of the largest industry and the fastest growing business in the world which can bring huge benefits such as job opportunities, improvements to the infrastructure of the country and preserve natural resources but it has to be able to balance with the disadvantages that ecotourism brings. Due to this fact, an ecotourism certification needs to be implementing to assist in the sustainable management of ecotourism. This certification can help to improve environmental performance as well as preserving natural resources but most importantly can help to distinguish genuine ecotourism provider. The purpose of this study is to identify sustainability of ecotourism criteria and indicators to determine sustainable ecotourism development in Peninsular Malaysia. This was an attempt to develop a guideline for ecotourism certification as a sustainability measurement for the evaluation of ecotourism. The study addresses concentrating on three sections; analyses of travel agency's' background and their visitation; travel agency's understanding on ecotourism and certification; and their practices of ecotourism. A screening survey is the first round of survey to identify the actual ecotourism provider which the statistic is given by Ministry of Tourism before proceed to next round of evaluation. After screening a total of 204 travel agencies are identified as truly ecotourism provider and willing to participate to the next round of the survey. A questionnaire survey is used to gather the primary data which divided into three parts; demographic, perception on ecotourism, and ecotourism practice. The major question will be on ecotourism practice which is design based on existing criteria and indicators that used world widely in the sustainable tourism. The results found that most of travel agencies were only partially knowledgeable about the concept of sustainable tourism. It is also found that travel agency has lacking of information and the important to implement the ecotourism certification. Thus, it is important to have ecotourism certification as a guideline in providing ecotourism. This certification can help to control ecotourism sustainability and prevent 'green-washing'.