Ecotourism presents a small segment of nature-tourism, which is understood as travelling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas (Gőssling, 1999). According to the World Wildlife Fund, in 1995 nature-tourism consisted of 15% of all tourism worldwide. The term ecotourism can be well described with the following five criteria: nature conservation, low impact, sustainability, mea...

Ecotourism is a viable alternative for the development of regions and countries with a strong natural resource base. Sustainable development involves the compatibility of the growth in the number of tourists and the preservation of ecologically valuable natural resources. This paper focuses on the relationships between environmental degradation and physical capital in the management of natural ...

Ecotourism as a strategy for achieving biodiversity conservation often results in limited conservation impact relative to its investment and revenue return. In cases where an ecotourism strategy has been used, projects are frequently criticized for not providing sufficient evidence on how the strategy has reduced threats or improved the status of the biodiversity it purports to protect. In Lao ...

Ajodhya Hill in Purulia district of West Bengal is a treasure house of natural beauties, but hilly terrain and thick forest cover have made many parts of this region inaccessible by road and perpetual agricultural drought over decades had weakened the economy of the area. Taking advantage of this physical and economic handicap, an organized group of social and political activists called Left-Wi...

The increase of ecotourism operations within Costa Rica during the last 20 yrs has brought more and more humans into close, direct contact with several wildlife species. One of these species is the white-faced capuchin (Cebus capucinos), highly gregarious, and with exposure over time, willing to come into close vicinity of humans and their developments. Such contact has its advantages and disad...

Ecotourism is widely promoted as a conservation tool and actively practiced in protected areas worldwide. Theoretically, support for conservation from the various types of stakeholder inside and outside protected areas is maximized if stakeholders benefit proportionally to the opportunity costs they bear. The disproportional benefit distribution among stakeholders can erode their support for or...

A new fast growing trend in tourism is ecotourism, in which tourists visit natural ecosystems under low impact, nonconsumptive and locally oriented activities. Through these activities species and habitats are maintained and typically, underdeveloped regions are emphasized. Ecotourism provides a great alternative, especially for rural and undeveloped area. At the same time, despite its many ben...

The paper examines issues pertinent to the strategic planning and management of ecotourism. The use ofMulti-CriteriaAnalysis in ecotourism is an innovative application of an existingmethodology that has been traditionally employed in environmental planning and project appraisal to address conflicting stakeholder objectives over scarce natural resources. Using data from a case study of community...

introduction today, one of the new economic opportunities, as well as the social and ecological needs of the world due to strongly growing and expanding, is the tourism industry. nature is one of the most important economic activities in different parts of the world a therefore it is a very good opportunity to provide visitors to be aware of the importance of preserving culture and how to prote...