ABSTRACT
Since the publication of Ecotourism: Impacts, Potentials and Possibilities (Wearing & Neil, 2009) there has been evidence of an expanding body of scholarship that has sought to consider two fundamental questions. What is the nature of ecotourism as an activity? And what is the philosophical relationship between ecotourism and the broader, natural, sociocultural and economic environment in which it is situated (Cobbinah, 2015; Fennell & Nowaczek, 2010; Weaver, 2005)? Both issues are central to our understanding of the sustainability of an industry like ecotourism. Butler (Butler, 1999) has suggested that ecotourism’s sustainability credentials lie in its ability to link conservation and development. In this way the nature of the activity is key; it is more than a holiday – it is also perhaps a philosophy and a model of development (Butler, 1999).
