Tourism Ecological Compensation:Progress and Prospects
摘要
As a systematic and institutional arrangement, tourism ecological compensation aims to transfer external costs generated from tourism resource development into economic incentives for stakeholders to reconcile the conflict between tourism development and ecological protection.Based on theoretical research and progress in China and abroad, several important aspects have been analyzed such as the connotation of tourism ecological compensation, compensation subject and object, compensation standard, compensation mode and a guarantee system. From a broader definition, tourism ecological compensation has been expanded from a simple charge for ecological services to a more balanced development opportunity both for stakeholders involved in ecological environment protection and different regions. From the perspective of tourist destinations,compensation bodies should include tourists, tourism enterprises, government and other entities such as environmental organizations. Compensation objects include the local residents, ecological environment, industry and stakeholders. Currently, the commonly used methods to identify tourism ecological compensation standards show pros and cons. To name a few: assessment of tourism resources value, opportunity costs allowance accounting, cost determination and payment willingness. In practice, tourism ecological compensation is realized mainly through certain trading patterns for transaction price. The ideal model should be a combination of government-led with market-driven compensation and a cost and effectiveness combined compensation model. In the implementation of ecological compensation, an effective security system should be established for management and supervision. Furthermore, key issues concerning tourism ecological compensation require more attention, such as the spatial distribution and grade division of ecological compensation, a tourism eco-compensation standard and its temporal and spatial distribution,compensation mechanism