Nature Based Tourism and its Implications: A Case Study of Blyde River Canyon in South Africa

This report discusses the concept of nature based tourism and its importance in the growth of the tourism industry. It focuses on a case study of Blyde River Canyon in South Africa, exploring the economic, environmental, and social implications of tourism in the area. The report also provides strategies to maintain positive and negative impacts for sustainable tourism.

Tourism

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Tourism is the travelling business or pleasure, the practices and theory of touring,
business attraction, accommodation, entertaining tourists and businesses of operating certain
tours. This report is based upon nature based tourism and its importance in the growth of tourism
industry (Benckendorff, Xiang and Sheldon, 2019). Nature based tourism is determined as any
kind of tourism which relies upon certain experiences in relation to natural beauty, attractions
and it consists of adventure tourism, wildlife tourism, nature threats, extractive tourism and
ecotourism. It is recognised as a significant part of the industry of tourism and it has shown
growth in recent years. It also covers analysation and evaluation of implications to achieve
sustainability drawn from case study. Further, it covers various kinds of impacts of nature based
tourism such as environmental, economical and social impacts. At the end, it covers economic
implications for the economic sustainability.
DISCUSSION
Nature based tourism is responsible in making people travel to natural areas that helps in
conserving environment and in improving local people's welfare. This kind of tourism is
dependent upon a destination's natural attraction and beauty. It incudes stargazing, hiking,
fishing, visiting parks, hunting and photography.
South Africa
South Africa is a southernmost sovereign state of Africa and it is famous for its
overwhelming diversity and natural beauty. It is 25th world's largest country by the land area and
it covers 471,443 Sq Km area. It is famous for its wildlife adventures and natural beauty which
helped in increasing visitors in this place (A country guide to South Africa, 2019). South Africa is
bordered by Atlantic Ocean on east and south which has enhanced the beauty of this destination.
This place is famous for its beautiful natural places such as Kruger National Park, Kgalagadi
(Kalahari) Transfrontier Park,The Drakensberg, KwaZulu-Natal, and so on. As per South
Africa's statistics, around 3.5 million visitors had been passed through country's ports in the year
2017. The topmost countries that has large tourists number who visits this place are UK,
Netherlands, USA, France and Germany.
Blyde River Canyon
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Blyde River Canyon is the beautiful natural landmark which is situated in South Africa
and and it is recognised as among the largest canyons in the whole world. This destination forms
Drakensberg escarpment's northern part and is situated in Mpumalanga. It is situated in Blyde
River Canyon Nature Reserve which has 25 kilometres length and its depth is 150 metres. By its
natural beauty, it is attracting thousands of international visitors to visit this place (Blyde River
Canyon, 2019). This place is unique in its own manner and is famous for continuously flowing
and high quality water.
Different impacts of Blyde River Canyon Tourism
There are various impact of this beautiful destination of South Africa such as social,
economical, environmental, political and so on. It has both positive as well as negative impact
upon its external environment. Its implication upon various factors can be seen as follows-
Economic Implications- This destination helps South Africa in developing and growing
its overall economy as it attracts thousands of visitors all over the world to come and visit this
beautiful place (Bohn, 2019). It is considered as the third large canyon in world and it helps in
attracting around 900000 visitors every year. It helps in increasing the number of tourists in this
place which increases the financial stability of South Africa. Moreover its water is used for
irrigation purposes which is also enhancing the economic stability of South Africa. This
destination is also popular for its mining activities which is generating high amount of revenue
for South Africa.
Environmental Implications- It has negative environmental implication upon South
Africa as its biodiversity is threatening in some of the areas. It is happening because if
applications that are made for prospecting silver and gold farms which is adjoining park and one
farm which is inside the boundaries of park and this park borders Blyde River Canyon Park. It is
important for government of South Africa to take certain a actions in order to reduce the negative
implications of mining upon environment (Mining Activities Threaten Sensitive Areas In The
Blyde River Canyon, 2019).
Cultural Implications- This destination promotes the culture and heritage of South
Africa and is considered as one of the best example of cultural routes and cultural landscapes
which had developed within implementation of World Heritage Convention that considers that
20th century is a history now (Palmer and Andrews, 2019). This helps the visitors to know the
heritage and culture of South Africa which makes them even more excited about this place.
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Social Implications- This beautiful destination which is located in Mpumalanga has
positive impact upon the local people of South Africa (How Mpumalanaga does tourism, 2019).
It helps in generating many employment opportunities to its local people and they are paid well
in tourism economy and there are certain opportunities for them for increasing their skills and
education. It also has Ekurhuleni Orphan and Vulnerable Children’s Center which is developed
for creating a safe and loving shelter for the desperate children of poverty node (South Africa's
poorest children) and for helping them in developing their certain knowledge and skills which is
required by them for becoming healthy and productive citizens (Social and Environmental
Responsbiliy, 2019). This project will help in serving a center for children for coming after the
school time for meal, help them with their homework, give them training of life skills,
extracurricular activities and certain health screenings. This long period plan will help in
providing home to around 30 children who has no living place or those who are orphan or those
who do not have parents or any relatives who can take care of them.
Strategies to maintain positive and negative impact
There are various strategies which can be adopted by Blyde River Canyon for
maintaining the positive and negative impacts of this destination upon social, economical,
environmental and cultural aspect. These strategies are developed to ensure the sustainability,
growth and in achieving the overall goals. These strategies are elaborated as follows-
Partnership- Partnership helps the destination to make it even more productive by
bringing in tourism and capital and in knowing where it lacks. Partnership also brings expertise,
training, exposure and potential for enriching destination. The restoration experts throughout the
South Africa has congregated over the three days for participating in a technical group of
working for developing a strategy of coordinated restoration being a Blyde restoration plan part.
Technical workshop had been coordinated by K2C (Krugar to Canyons). A significant part of
escarpment in Mpumalanga is protected within BRCNR( Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve),
which is one of the iconic natural reserve of South Africa. Besides it is considered as the best
place for visitors by experiencing some landscapes of South Africa to be impressive
(ENHANCING PARTNERSHIPS TO CONSERVE AND EXPAND THE BLYDE RIVER CANYON
NATURE RESERVE , 2019).
K2C by funding from GEF( Global Environment Facility) which is facilitated by
SANBI( South African National Biodiversity Institute) that is helping in supporting this process.
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This kind of decisions helps in showing tremendous foresight and it helps in acknowledging the
significant of areas of low veld plantation in context if conservation significance but it also
contribute to security of water in region (Buhalis and Sinarta, 2019). Moreover, by declaring
such areas can be considered as a basic step and there are certain challenges which can be faced.
This destination can build partnership with various different destinations of South Africa and it
will help this place to enhance its economic contribution in the growth and development of
country's economy. Moreover, with the help of partnership, this place can also take certain
initiatives i9n order to protect its negative impact upon the environment. It is also essential for
the growth and development of this destination as it will help in reaching to audiences, creating
awareness among visitors, exciting interest and converting it into various actions that can be an
important challenge, specially in this age of competition for gaining tourism dollars in order to
strengthen around the world (Cohen and Cohen, 2019).
It will also help in maximising the tourism budget of Blyde River Canyon by building
certain strategic partnership and by combining various marketing effort into coherent voice. A
similar minded partnership approach will help in providing this organisation in increasing its
unity, leverage results and strength that has more effective market. There are certain hotels which
are located near this beautiful destination that provides visitors accommodation and food. Blyde
River Canyon can do partnership with these hotels which will help in increasing the economic
growth of the country as a whole. This destination can also collaborate itself in various travelling
and tourism industries which will help it in promoting its culture and heritage among the visitors.
It will also help in attracting large number of customers as these travelling industries will add
this destination in its tourism packages. Moreover, it will also provide certain employment
opportunities to local people living them. This will help in social and economic development of
South Africa (Cohen and Hopkins, 2019).
Business Strategies- Business strategy is considered as a competitive actions and move
sets which an organisation or a destination can use for attracting large number of customers,
competing successfully in a market, achieving the destination goals and in strengthening its
overall performance (Saarinen, Rogerson and Hall, 2019). This destination had already indulge
itself in various business activities such as it it is indulge in agriculture and mining activities
which helps in economic growth and development of this destination.
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There are other business strategies which can be adopted by this beautiful destination in
order to maintain its economic and social sustainability. The first thing which can be done by this
enterprise is to collaborate itself with hotels, restaurants and other businesses in order to expand
its market share and its overall profitability (Faber and Gaubert, 2019). The other thing which
can be done by this destination is to expand its services. For instance, right now it is dealing with
providing services like horse riding, hiking, water rafting, boat trips and biking tours. It can also
provide services such as camping. This will help it to expand its market share and also help in
attracting large number of customers. This will help in maintaining economic sustainability of its
country.
Monitoring- Another strategy which can be applied by this destination is to monitor all
the external and internal factors that is affecting its growth and sustainability. It can keep an eye
on all the factors and must take major initiatives to control the negative impact of these factors.
Due to mining activities, there are certain negative impacts upon environment which is causing
harm to the environment. In order to protect the environment, the government can take action to
limit the activities of mining in its area and keep on monitoring on any kind of harmful omission
of certain harmful gases which can harm the environment. This will help in developing and
combining conservation with the appropriate and sustainable usage of ecosystem for benefiting
the local communities (Fedeli, 2019). A lot of pollution is generating in this river which is
having negative impact upon its quality of water as this pollution from mining activities is
mixing with this clean water and making it impure. Mercury, which is a dangerous toxin of
environment is also used in small scale operations of gold mining. This is also having negative
impact upon the animals and species which are living in this area.
In order to eliminate all the negative impact of mining upon the Blyde River Canyon, it is
important for the government to take certain major actions in order to make sure that this
beautiful destination is protected and reserved. The solution is not to completely ban the
activities of mining in this area as if it will be done than it will reduce the economic
sustainability and growth (Gibson, 2019). As mining is one of the major sources of employment
opportunities to its local people and the major source of revenue for government. So, it is
important to keep on monitoring these activities and develop certain strategies for reducing its
negative impact upon environment.
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The first thing which can be done in this context is to reduce the unregulated and illegal
mines. In relation to enforce certain regulations and to maintain steadfast legislation in regards
to behaviour and procedures of mines, the swift and strict closing of unregulated and illegal
mining activities will help in setting precedent within environment (Jiang, Ritchie and
Benckendorff, 2019). Another thing which can be done to make it more effective is through
reduction is wasteful usage of amount on a private and public level and with the help to steer
production to single usage of durable products which can easily reused, recycles or re-
manufactures. This will help the in reducing negative impact upon the environment. This
creative trend of scraping mining and utilising resources for other initiatives of mining.
Moreover, South Africa government can also help by forming better regulations and legislation
in respect of protecting harmful impact of mining upon the environment (Top 10 Ways to Make
Mines More Environmentally Friendly, 2019). The harmful impact of mining upon environment
can also be reduced by examining the impacts of environment in a systematic manner and by
adopting various measures for mitigating these harmful impacts. This will make it possible in
making mining activities less destructive towards environment. The increased efficiency will not
do the job instead of this, a long term vision to remake industrial world-one will help in aligning
certain economies with natural environment which helps in supporting them in sustainable
manner.
There are various significant tricks which is helpful to reduce harmful affects of mining
such as by recycling copper, which takes around 7 times less energy which is lesser than the
processing ore, and by recycling steel that uses less energy than ore and it can go a long path to
determine longevity of mine and its positive impact of environment. Other thing which can be
done is to invest in research and development of mining industry by collecting funds and by
preventing unnecessary waste in less reusing materials and better efficiency and in understanding
its implications in a better way (Kourentzes and Athanasopoulos, 2019). It can also replenish the
grasses and native soils, by cleaning the excess wastage, by providing proper waste removal, by
inspecting sites, by replanting trees and b by indulging in natural forestry which can help in
rejuvenating long term repair of ecosystem and in sustaining the environment for years.
This destination has positive impact upon the economic and social environment as it is
providing economic growth and development by indulging itself in various business activities
such as mining and irrigation. In order to make sure that these activities continue to provide
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benefits to economic growth, it is essential to monitor these business activities to ensure that it is
able to provide economic sustainability and growth (Li, Liu and Song, 2019). In order to promote
this beautiful destination in the world, it can use social media sites by posting various pictures
and videos on these sites. This destination in helping in providing various employment
opportunities to its local people who are living there by providing them jobs and indulge them in
their business activities. It has also started a program which is focusing upon poor people of
South Africa. In order to make sure that this program is serving its benefits to poor people in an
appropriate manner, it must keep an eye to monitor all the activities which are included in this
program (Notzke, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that increase in awareness among tourists
regarding various hidden destination treasure helps in increasing the growth and sustainability of
this industry. Nature based tourism helps in providing certain incentives for local society and
communities for conserving the wildlife habitats on which an industry is dependent and it also
helps in promoting conservation by increasing value of natural areas and destinations.
Destinations has certain impacts upon forces such as economical, social, environmental and
cultural. Destinations helps in generating high amount of revenue to government by promoting
its culture and heritage. Moreover, sometimes certain activities can harm the beauty of these
destinations which can be resolved by applying various strategies such as collaborating with
other destinations or travelling industry to increase market share and by regularly monitoring the
activities which can harm the environment and on that basis take certain actions.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Bohn, D., 2019. Evaluation in tourism planning: An examination of Finland's national, regional
and local tourism strategies.
Buhalis, D. and Sinarta, Y., 2019. Real-time co-creation and nowness service: lessons from
tourism and hospitality. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 36(5), pp.563-582.
Cohen, S. A. and Cohen, E., 2019. New directions in the sociology of tourism. Current Issues in
Tourism. 22(2). pp.153-172.
Cohen, S. A. and Hopkins, D., 2019. Autonomous vehicles and the future of urban
tourism. Annals of tourism research. 74. pp.33-42.
Faber, B. and Gaubert, C., 2019. Tourism and economic development: evidence from Mexico's
coastline. American Economic Review. 109(6). pp.2245-93.
Fedeli, G., 2019. ‘Fake news’ meets tourism: a proposed research agenda. Annals of Tourism
Research.
Gibson, L. J., 2019. The potential for tourism development in nonmetropolitan areas.
In Economic Adaptation (pp. 145-164). Routledge.
Jiang, Y., Ritchie, B. W. and Benckendorff, P., 2019. Bibliometric visualisation: An application
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Kourentzes, N. and Athanasopoulos, G., 2019. Cross-temporal coherent forecasts for Australian
tourism. Annals of Tourism Research. 75. pp.393-409.
Li, S., Liu, A. and Song, H., 2019. Does tourism support supply-side structural reform in
China?. Tourism Management. 71. pp.305-314.
Notzke, C., 2019. Equestrian tourism: animal agency observed. Current Issues in
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Palmer, C. and Andrews, H. eds., 2019. Tourism and Embodiment. Routledge.
Saarinen, J., Rogerson, C. M. and Hall, C. M. eds., 2019. Tourism planning and development:
contemporary cases and emerging issues. Routledge.
Online
A country guide to South Africa. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.yatra.com/international-tourism/south-africa>.
Blyde River Canyon. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.lonelyplanet.com/south-africa/blyde-river-canyon>.
Mining Activities Threaten Sensitive Areas In The Blyde River Canyon. 2017. [Online].
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tourism>
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Social and Environmental Responsbiliy. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://blyderivercanyon.co.za/social-responsibility/>
ENHANCING PARTNERSHIPS TO CONSERVE AND EXPAND THE BLYDE RIVER CANYON
NATURE RESERVE . 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
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the-blyde-river-canyon-nature-reserve/>
Top 10 Ways to Make Mines More Environmentally Friendly. 2019. [Online]. Available
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