Valuing Nature Trips?

As the Executive Director of the Maine Professional Guides Association I frequently talk with writers and reporters exploring some aspect of Maine guiding. As a result I am occasionally quoted in some publication or another. When we are discussing the industry and the future; the question of “nature tourism” or “eco tourism” always comes up.

Like me these reporters have seen the mounds of data and reports indicating that nature tourism is an area with huge potential. I counter with the simple fact that I have offered nature trips of many variations for well over twenty years and have never had results that come close to any of those reports. I have offered what I consider to be quality trips at a fair price. Over the years they have been in packages offered with the largest hotel and resort in our area to several small bed and breakfasts. Sales are not zero, do not get me wrong, but certainly nothing to even come close to what fishing brings in the summer months or hunting in the fall. If you check my rates you will even see that those trips sell for a lower price and still have lower volume.

Other guides from around the state have similar stories and many are out of business after reading all of the data and setting up shop only to be disappointed with the number of trips they sold. After fifteen years of hearing that “nature tourism” was going to propel Maine Guides into the next century, I am wondering why the nature traveler does not place value on what a Maine Guide offers. Why is it that someone who wants to catch a fish places value on what a guide can do but someone who wants to see an eagle, or a loon does not?

Because travelers can come from anywhere the influence must be present almost everywhere and not local. Over the years I have thought of and dismissed a bunch of different ideas. My latest is that perhaps because various small nonprofit type groups offer a variety of nature trips for free or at very low cost almost everywhere, these types of trips are seen as having no value. By way of example the local land trust is offering my exact afternoon canoe trip for free later this summer. I am sure that their interest is to get folks out in the watershed but is one of the unintended consequences that a trip to these out of the way places is of no value?

By no means is this the final answer to the question but rather my latest thought. If you are reading this you are a client or potential client. What do you think?