Ecotourism

Introduction

Ecotourism? A simple enough word but a complex and often contradictory concept. A fashion, a fad? Ecological travel is the ‘next big thing’; the hippest way to travel is to backpack off the beaten track to experience ‘nature’ up close and personal (with all the luxuries of home included).

A tourism industry marketing exercise that effectively packages ‘nature’ for affluent urban dwellers to ‘experience’ a romantic world now lost to us moderns? Lush rainforests, arid deserts, the polar caps – these are the ‘hottest’ destinations (while they last).

Or a way for environmentalism to enter the mainstream in the 1990s after losing its impetus in an economic rationalist world? Conservation issues are now at the forefront of public opinion. ...