A Research On The Application Of Eco-tourism Theory To The Operation Of Travel Service

The characteristics of ecotourism are embodied in its primitive tour resources, plain ways of activity, ecological management, a high participation in travel process, the smallest influence on the travel destination and a sustainable use of resources. It has a set of principles and requests to itself. Therefore, this article persists that eco-tourism is not only a newly emerging alternative traveling product but also a management idea suitable for ecotourism itself.According to the four-body theory of ecotourism the system is composed of the main body (ecotourists), the object (ecotourism resources), the media (ecotourism industry) and the carrier (ecotourism environment). The development of an ecotourism activity relies on the place and resources offered by the carrier and the object, while media and the main body can exert influence to the object and the carrier as activities develops. On the grounds of the protection principle, the realization of protection requests the tourism operators to achieve the biggest profit and tourists to satisfy their recreational demands with ecological consciousness and under the premise of smallest impact on the environment. In ecotourism, the main function of a travel agency lies in managing according to the principle and requests of ecotourism, exploiting authentic ecotourism product, offering ecological education to the main body before the tour and restraining their non-ecological behavior while servicing the tourist. In light of this, the author induced and discussed the ecotourism theory on the foundation of the predecessors' and constructed the theory system of the application of ecotourism to the travel agency. In view of the dual connotation of ecotourism in the article, the theory consists of two divisions: the macroscopic level of ecological management and the microscopic level of ecotourism product development of a travel agency.In separately defining correlative concepts of the travel agency ecological management connotation, feasibility and ecotourism product development of a travel agency, the article discusses the ecological operation through aspects of management idea, operation process, organizing manner, etc.; elaborates on ecotourism product development by discussing the market investigation and forecast, the selection of ecological supply chain and the implementation of green marketing in practice.Finally, the article takes Changsha as a case, through sampling 32 travel agencies for investigation the author has gained the first-hand materials of the present situation (including product exploitation) of the travel agency's ecotourism management in Changsha and carried on an analysis of the existing problems while putting forward correlative proposals. Moreover, through carrying on a tourist questionnaire survey in the local representative ecotourism parks and grasping the cognition situation of ecotourism of the investigated object and traveling demands as well as their requests of the travel agency, this article proposes countermeasures and suggestions for the application of ecotourism to the operation of the travel agency in Changsha.