Heritage Tourism And Environmental Conservation: An Empirical Study

Heritage tourism has become one of the most important branches of the international tourism business that makes a considerable contribution to the economic growth, creation of new jobs, and cultural conservation. Nonetheless, the fast growth of heritage tourism has also cast concern in relation to the degradation and ecological imbalance of the environment as well as the degradation of heritage sites. The paper is an empirical study of the correlation between the development of heritage tourism and environmental conservation, especially the tourist awareness, conservation practices, and environmental impacts of heritage sites. A structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data of 120 respondents and analysed through the use of SPSS tools including reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis. The results have shown that heritage tourism and environment conservation are positively correlated, implying that awareness and proper conservation efforts are important in reducing the destruction of the environment. The research finds that, a sustainable management of heritage tourism can be used as a potent tool of environmental protection and sustainable development in the long term.