The role of UK-based conservation tourism operators

This paper focuses on a specialty sub-sector of the larger ecotourism market, which fuses the ‘hard’ ecotourist with the volunteer tourist, in which paying members of the general public travel for the purpose of participating in organised conservation work. This industry has an increasing impact on the global distribution of volunteers and resources for conservation, and despite its increasing commercialisation, there has been little examination of this industry. This paper aims to provide a broad insight into the UK conservation tourism industry, examining the scale of the industry and the diversity and practices of the organisations involved. The paper then explores the range and distribution of holidays, the volunteers participating and allocation of fees. As the industry expands further, it will be important for these organisations to keep the quality of their conservation products high and the volunteer's engagement with nature deep and meaningful.