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Environmentally

friendly tourism, interpretation centers & entrepreneurship related to biodiversity



Henning Schwarze1 1 World Habitat Society GmbH, Paderborner Str. 11, D-33189 Schlangen, Germany Phone: +49 5252 26928380, Fax: +49 5252 26928389 E-Mail: h.schwarze@world-habitat-society.org Internet: www.world-habitat-society.org

Bio: Henning Schwarze is a Geographer, director and founder of the World Habitat Society (WHS), a German and Oman based organization, active in the fields of environment, tourism and sustainability. He is a consultant for UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, World Heritage Sites and Geoparks. Over the last decade he implemented projects in Germany, East Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula. He is currently involved in innovative tourism and educational projects, incorporating mobile applications and social media. Keywords: Tourism, education for sustainable development, environment, sustainability, entrepreneurship, innovation, UNESCO Abstract: Recent trends in tourism are leading away from pure recreation and seaside tourism towards premium natural and cultural tourism, with a special emphasis on sustainability and education. Designated areas, like UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves and Geoparks play an important role with providing quality travel experience, based on transcultural education and lifelong learning. To meet visitors expectations these days, attractions (Points of Interest) and tourist information need to be presented in a quality and state of the art mode. In order to follow up this novelty, miscellaneous approaches will lead to better, sustainable tourism, which offers good travel experience, conserves and promote the local biodiversity and heritage, and also generates sources of income in the host country: (1) Nowadays information technology plays an important role in our every day life, also in the tourism industry: many tourists plan and book their journey in the world wide web and they share their travel experience within social media networks. Technology based services, e.g. GPS- guided tours, multimedia tourist- and educational information, can provide up-to-date and reliable information, supporting a better understanding for nature and culture. In addition to an increased awareness, IT based systems can provide services within vulnerable destinations in an environmentally friendly way. (2) Another important tool to provide tourism-, and in particular educational information is an interpretation centre. Whereas conventional tourist information centres often serve as simple entry points, where visitors have to pay their entry fee, the role of interpretation centres has changed according to the tourists demand for quality information: today interpretation centres serve as a resource for information which has the standard of a museum, including museum educational services. More often visitor centres have to be seen as research centres where one will find a smooth transition between public relations and science, leading to innovative and successful tourist information (e.g. World Heritage Education and World Heritage Research). Furthermore these interpretation centres have an important role as out-of-school student laboratories. Last but not least the structure and design of an information centre itself has to consider sustainable clean standards, where e.g. the use

of solar power, adequate wastewater management and recycling techniques are a matter of course. (3) Taking into account the visitors growing demand for premium information and education, authentic experience and sustainability, stakeholders have to consider these trends, which offer chances for the development of new sources for local income. On the one hand the involvement of the local community is mandatory to provide the authentic experience, in particular for cultural and historical attractions. Consequently this will offer various alternatives for employment, e.g. in the accommodation-, catering- and tour guiding sector. In this regard cooperation and public-private-partnerships will support the overall success of a destination. On the other hand, the implementation of the introduced trends in tourism, and their consideration within new site development, has the potential to raise ideas for new concepts and industries. For example one could think of partnerships where science (at an interpretation centre) and local business (regional knowledge) jointly develop techniques for renewable energies, waste management or lodging, adapted to the specific regional situation. This symbiotic relationship has the potential to generate centres of excellence in various fields, considering environmental and cultural knowledge towards the development of exemplary sustainable innovations, which, in the ideal case, can be globally applicable.

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