Evaluation of Environmental Management and Conservation of Natural Resources in Tourism Enterprises in Ayacucho, Peru: Workers’ Perceptions

Abstract

Nowadays, it is important to promote environmental management in organisations so that natural resources are subject to a conservation process that allows them to be maintained over time. In addition, this is a good way to increase the environmental awareness of the different actors in society. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the perceptions of workers concerning the relationship between environmental management and the conservation of natural resources in tourism companies in Ayacucho, located in the Andean region of Peru. The research is of a basic type, with a quantitative approach and a non-experimental, correlational-exploratory design. The survey technique was used and the data-collection instrument was a questionnaire addressed to 600 workers on environmental management, with the dimensions of planning, implementation and operation and verification; and on conservation of natural resources, with the dimensions of biodiversity monitoring and consolidation of the protected area. The results show that 39% of workers disagree with the planning of their company, 47% neither agree nor disagree with the operations of their company and the implementation of its projects and 47% disagree with their company’s methods of assessing the success of its operations. These results show that an environmental management model should be proposed to improve the conservation of natural resources and to contribute to the revaluation of resources and the promotion of biodiversity protection in order to create environmental awareness in society.

Keywords

• natural resources
• conservation
• environmental awareness
• tourism
• biological diversity