What is Ecotourism?

ECOTOURISM is a purposeful travel to natural areas to understand the cultural and natural history of environment, taking care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem, while producing economic opportunities that make conservation of natural resources beneficial to local people. In short, ecotourism can be conceptualized as. Any tourism programme that is:
(a) nature based,
(b) ecologically sustainable,
(c) where education and interpretation is a major component and
(d) where local people are benefited