The Importance Of Eco-Tourism

National Parks have wide variety activities such as game drives, wilderness trails, back pack trails, eco-trials and mountain bike trails where visitors have a good probability of seeing the Big 5 along with other animals therefore visitors are willing to spend time and money participating in such activities (Montag, Patterson & Freimund, 2005:283). Table 2.1 illustrate the profile of typical eco-tourists. Table 2.1 shows that the average age of visitors are from 40- 65 years old thus the activities that offered need to suit the needs of these visitors. Parks attract visitors that are mostly eco-tourists and eco-tourists are well educated possessing a diploma, bachelors or post-graduate degree. These eco-tourists mostly travel in groups of

Visitors want to relax and spend time with family in a scenic wilderness setting. National Parks management team should therefore ensure that information about the location and history of facilities and activities are distributed throughout the park. The infrastructure of facilities for activities and recreational facilities must be planned and maintained in a sustainable manner this will ensure that the National Parks have a level control over what visitors will be experiencing. Even if visitors do not see the Big 5, the National Park management need to ensure they still have a good experience by choosing a route that will illustrate the beauty of the environment and giving visitors the opportunity to view the wildlife.

The national park experience

National Geographic (2014) is of meaning that no park can survive without the contributions of the community, tourists and the conservation of wildlife. The problem that currently exists is that more wildlife areas are being developed into living space, national parks thus have to work with less space although the animal

Although visitors are different from one another, most of national park visitors have the same amount of time spent on leisure and tourism based activities (Scott et al., 2009). From Figure 2.2 can be concluded that visitors need to be made aware of the national park and the services/ benefits they will receive when visiting. Once the visitors arrive at the national park, park management need to ensure all the products and services provided to them are of good quality. There are three elements in order to create an experience: physical elements (surrounded by a natural environment), experience elements (visitors need to form an emotional connection with the national park to create a memory. The emotional element consist out of three categories: pleasure (visitors feel happy or satisfied), arousal (the degree to which the person feels satisfied or exited) and dominance (the degree to which the visitors feel in control of the environment and experience). The experience element also need visitors to participate in activities offered. The last element needed to create an experience is the interactive element where visitors get the opportunity to interact with the local community and experiencing wildlife in close proximity. Souvenirs have a big impact on whether an experience will be memorable because visitors buy physical products to remember the places they have travelled