Tourists' roles in developing an 'eco' tourism industry

ECOTOURISM has been variously defined in terms of its objective and roles contributing to certain areas in tourism.The public sectors would define ecotourism based on their roles as the policy-making, whilst the private sectors would define ecotourism based on the fact that they should gain something worth out of it.The concept of ecotourism is more on sustainable tourism, intelligent tourism, alternative tourism and solf tourism that normally known as 'geen'tourism.Since the early 1980s, there has been considerable debate on the environmental impacts of tourism and the links between green issues and ecotourism.The questions raised nowadays are, to what extend do tourists aware of their roles in developing ecotourism? Do they really need to understand the meaning of ecotourism in order to traveland use tourism infastructures? What actually are the tourists' roles in developing ecotourism industry? It is obvious that tourists play important roles in order to develop sustainable tourism.Thus, they need to understand clearly their roles as tourist in the context of ecotourism. This article aims to point out the roles of tourists in ecotourim and to discuss their roles in the context of ecotourism