Eco-Tourism is an interesting subject and one filled with many pros and cons. I feel that weighing the pros and cons prove that in the long run it is in fact beneficial. Eco-tourism is a wonderful source of income for many countries that otherwise do not have a very developed tourism industry or economy in general. In these hard times countries need to find ways to gain many and the most effective way with minimal start up costs is tourism. For those countries that were not endowed with culture monuments this may seem impossible. Recently they have started to tap into the abundant moment that was endowed by nature.

In order to use this resource and draw people, and more importantly their money, this moment must be beautiful. For this monument to be enjoyed people want nature to be pristine (un touched by humans). This is a very strong incentive for countries to clean up their environments and protect large sections of their environment. Eco-Tourism provides an economic reward for protecting the environment and this type of reward is what is needed to protect the environment. If the costs and benefits of destroying the environment and turning to manufacturing is less than preserving the environment and marketing it as a tourist destination then it would be in the best interest of the country to invest in it. The protection of the environment is in the best interest of a country in a tangible manner, thus eco-tourism is a wonderful replacement, or at least supplement, to heavy environmental degradation at the hands of industry.

There are some cons to this plan, but in may opinion they are lower than the benefits and are easily fixed with some minimal measures. The costs would include the environmental damage created by the transportation to this area. The impact of having people in this area would be great, but proper measures to ensure that these effects don't escalate would be implemented because they area would have to remain "pristine". The impact of people and transportation would most defiantly be included in the cost of these vacations as they would have an impact.

All together I believe that these eco-tourism is a wonderful idea in promoting the environment and should be seen as a viable alternative to environmentally degrading manufacturing.