Finding suitable locations for eco-tourism development in Cox's Bazar

Abstract

Ecotourism is nature-based tourism, which involves enjoying nature, understanding local environment and culture. At the same time, ecotourism demands conservation of nature and improvement of local communities to make the environment and tourism sustainable. Thus ecotourism can be viewed as a panacea. But, in real world the actual performance of ecotourism make huge controversies. An ecotourism site, having full sustainability and complete conservation of all living and nonliving resources, is a very rare case. Deciding ecotourism activities for a particular area is a quite complex job and deserves subjective judgment. Land suitability analysis for ecotourism activities has similar effect, the complex decision making process. A lot of natural, environmental, social and economic factors influence the site selection for ecotourism activities. Experts from different backgrounds need to be involved in the site selection process. Furthermore, such decision making process should have consistency to get more accurate decision. The aim of this study is thus, to find suitable locations for ecotourism development in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. To fulfil this aim at first resource maps were prepared based on general landuse classes. Then, within the area of those resource maps potential ecotourism sites were identified and ranked using Geographical Information System (GIS) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP technique was used as this is a very useful technique to make subjective and consistent judgment as well as help to make ranking of decision choices. Five factors and fifteen criteria were identified to evaluate suitability of sites. Factors and criteria were selected based on literature review, local knowledge and expert’s opinions. After ranking the suitable locations, the study result shows 76.32 sq. km (9%) area as highly suitable, 499.41 sq. km (56%) area as moderately suitable and 189 sq. km (21%) area as minimum suitable for ecotourism development in the study area. Also, another 124.65 sq. km (14%) area was found unsuitable for ecotourism for its highly agricultural and urban landuse. The highly suitable areas are characterized by hilly forest, most of the growth centres fall within the moderately suitable areas and minimum suitable areas are predominated by rural agricultural land. Based on research findings some strategic recommendations have been suggested at the regional level. Major recommendations aimed at treating the highly suitable area as more ‘natural’ and for bringing them under conservation programs, creating tourist facilities in the moderately suitable areas by targeting growth centres and protecting agricultural land and encouraging local primary activities in the minimum suitable areas.