Achieving Sustainable Tourism through Eco-lodge Venture: Evidence from Eco-lodge Cases

Tourism has contributed massively to the change in our climate and the pollution and degradation of our environments. It is highly of importance to seek a change which is more sustainable henceforth to achieve development, in worldwide tourism. In literature, an image of ecotourism is made with attention on the nature’s environment, and to attain sustainability in terms of the environment, economically and socially. The more delimited ecolodges are found within ecotourism; aspiring to be sustainable in terms of social, economic and environmental conditions. Ten lodges for tourism were selected as tools in the measurement of ten cases studied, in order to point out what the practicality of ecolodge seems like and how a definition of it can be formulated. And from the literature, there are five indicators of sustainability of the environments and four for sustainability in socioeconomics. These indicators for the environment included elements like food, energy, waste, construction and water, which were portrayed in practical terms in the cases studied. The socioeconomic elements included the local community, staff, education, certification and education of tourists, in no particular order, with the literature placing emphasis on the theoretic ecolodge’s sensitivity, in terms of the environment. The indicating elements which are socioeconomic showed more weakness during the cases studied, highlighting in theory, a suggestion for the official definition of the term – ecolodge, accompanied by principles on the sensitivity of the environment and the conservation of nature. So as to provide assistance to the continued propagation of enlightenment about ecolodges globally, this thesis makes a conclusion with the suggestion for an ecolodge which is official in terms of definition, consequently accompanied by principles bordering the sensitivity of the environment; the conservation of nature, as well as a close bond to the community’s locals and education meant to extensively prepare the staff, the locals and the visiting tourists. Keywords: Sustainability, Ecotourism, Ecolodge, Conservation, Environment, Socioeconomic