The Politics of Ecotourism and the Developing World

Ecotourism is a rapidly growing niche market within one of the worlds’ biggest industries. In 2004 international tourist arrivals grew by more than 10% to an all-time record of 763 million, and in the first quarter of 2005 those numbers grew by 8%. In 2003 international tourism receipts represented approximately 6% of worldwide exports of goods and services. Ecotourism is an important subset of this global market and studies suggest it is rapidly expanding (see Starmer-Smith, 2004). For the developing world, or the south, ecotourism is often promoted as an ideal means of reconciling economic growth with environmentally sustainable development. Organisations as diverse as the World Bank, development nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), indigenous rights groups, tour operators, bilateral donors and environmental NGOs have all placed faith in ecotourism as a sustainable development strategy. Furthermore, it is often promoted as a politically neutral and technical policy: economic growth and environmental conservation will be achieved by getting the technical or policy environment right. In addition, it is particularly promoted for underdeveloped countries because it is precisely their ‘underdevelopment’ or ‘lack of modernisation’ that makes their environments attractive commodities for visitors from the developed world (the north). However, such positive accounts of the potential for ecotourism belie the politics of pursuing ecotourism as a policy to produce sustainable development. For example, the politics of ecotourism includes the contested definitions of ecotourism and ecotourists, the ways that destinations are marketed and promoted, its relationship to global networks that include donors and international travel agents, as well as its links to the promotion of neoliberalism as the path to development. The purpose of this special issue of the Journal of Ecotourism is to explore the politics of ecotourism from multiple angles. The papers investigate ecotourism from differing academic perspectives that span the debates from international political economy (IPE) to post-structuralist readings of ecotourism development. In addition, they provide a discussion of a wide range of case studies of ecotourism projects, destinations, as well as ecotourist performances and practices. Here, I will provide an overview of the politics of ecotourism, and specifically why it is a highly politicised development strategy for the developing world; so in this introduction I will analyse the main themes highlighted by this special issue. Firstly, I will discuss the contested definitions of ecotourism and who or what