ABSTRACT
This article explores the role of ecotourism in the neoliberalisation of environmental education. Defined by The International Ecotourism Society as ‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people’, ecotourism is among the fastest growing segments of a global tourism industry that, in 2011, recorded more than US $1 trillion in total receipts (Honey 2008; UNWTO 2012). Despite its substantial overlap with many aspects of outdoor and environmental education, however, to date, ecotourism has developed for the most part as an independent focus of research. This separation is perpetuated from both sides of the divide. Within the rapidly growing ecotourism literature, on the one hand, and notwithstanding important exceptions highlighted below, there is
1Current affiliation: International Development Studies, Department of Human Geography and Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
