ABSTRACT
Ecotourists are constructed in discourse as different from traditional tourists, though it is difficult to define them (Dowling, 2007; Fennell, 2002). One of the difficulties for ecotourism is that it lacks a clear definition, and as a result it is used to brand an extraordinary range of activities that vary in legitimacy. The word ecotourism is used to describe anything from inner city hotels encouraging guests to reuse their towels ‘for the sake of the environment’ to remote indigenous homestays. Two definitions of ecotourism most frequently cited in global literature include The International Ecotourism Society’s (1990) definition of it as ‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people’. The second definition emerges from the man credited with coining the phrase ecotourism, Hector Ceballos-Lascuráin, who said it was tourism involving travel ‘to relatively undisturbed natural areas with the specific object of studying, admiring and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals, as well as any existing cultural aspects (both past and present) found in these areas’ (1983). Ceballos-Lascuráin revisited and revised his original 1983 definition in 2006.
