Blog Post 5

Of the three case study Chambers has written about so far, the one that interests me the most was the latest one from chapter 3 about the ecotourism in Belize. I find it interesting that people would want to go on vacations or tourist destinations such as this, personally because these kinds of places are ones that I would probably never want to go to. I also feel like I’m pretty judgemental about the kinds of people who would go to places like Belize to engage in ecotourism, to go to and engage in all of the “exotic” activities and trying to immerse themselves in a culture while at the same time not committing to it fully and going back to stay in their fancy hotels at the end of their days. People engage in ecotourism to see various parts of nature while not realizing the effects their tourism and them being there have on the environment in the long run. The case study mentions how the increase tourism has led to the increase of hotels being built along the coastline which has caused for the coastal ecosystem to become damaged. The ones benefiting from ecotourism are often times not even the locals, with most shareholders being foreigners and locals only having low paying jobs within the establishments that the shareholders build. I just thought that of the three case studies so far, this one was the most interesting because of how it shows people being interested in the things a certain destination has to offer while not considering the consequences that their stay causes.