Henok Bekele

Ecotourism Development in Protected Areas: Potential, Relevance and Challenges, the Case of Maze National Park, Ethiopia Henok Bekele

Ecotourism is new and rapidly growing niche market in tourism industry. It has implications on environment, economy and culture. For this reason, protected areas are increasingly viewed as critical component of life support system and expected to do more ecologically, economically and socially than they ever have before. With the boom in World tourism market it is vital to assess protected areas in terms of their potential and relevance for ecotourism development to take part of the mixed blessing of the segment. It is also imperative to weigh possible future challenges of ecotourism development in these protected areas. Therefore, this book provides intrinsic view of ecotourism development in protected areas from environmental,economical and socio-cultural perspectives.