Mitigating the Environmental Impacts of the Development of Ecotourism Through Using Refurbished Buildings as Its Related Accommodation Services

This article investigates the environmental influence of using refurbished buildings as ecotourism accommodation services in terms of the effect on the host society’s environmental sustainability. It places the conservation of natural resources as the main ecological outcome for ecotourism. It uses the ecological footprint of the ecotourism accommodation services as the ecological indicator for evaluation of these services to ensure they are ecologically compatible. The article presents a case study of ‘The Otago Central Rail Trail’ (OCRT) as an example of ecotourism. The investigation reviews the impacts of the OCRT accommodation services on environmental resources by using ecological footprint. The results of this study suggest that in OCRT, using refurbished buildings as accommodation services contributes to reducing of environmental impacts related to OCRT. This article makes it clear that in OCRT using 12.9 % (21,378 m2) of bed space (80,356m2) in refurbished buildings reduces by 14.3 % (7.3 gha) the total 51 gha ecological footprint of accommodation services compared with when all accommodation buildings are assumed to be new buildings. The study described here was undertaken in a temperate climate but the method used would be equally appropriate for use in assessing the impact of facilities in the tropics.