CHARACTERISTICS OF DESIRABLE INDICATORS
Given that disaggregated information is required for management
purposes and a myriad of factors and interrelationships are
involved in ecotourism, it will be impossible to measure or monitor
everything. Information will never be comprehensive or complete.
In such situations it is necessary to selected a limited number of
indicators of change. It is not possible to suggest exactly what these
indicators should be. They are likely to vary with the character of the
area, the goals set for the area by the management agency, and the
resources and technical expertise available. However, useful indicators
are likely to have the following characteristics: they must be
sensitive to temporal change and variation, they should have a predictive
or anticipatory capability, and they should have conceptual
validity and relevance to management problems (Kreutzwiser 1993).
Often relative measures may be more useful than absolute measures.
For example, rather than population numbers or habitat area, a
measure of population per unit area of habitat may be more relevant.
They will also be more useful if references or threshold values
for that indicator are established. Furthermore, the range of indicators
which are selected should encompass economic, environmental
and socio-cultural domains and, if the goals of the management
agency are narrow, it may be necessary to extend the indicators
beyond their narrow interests to encompass the interests of the neighboring
communities and, possibly, other interests as well.