In debates about sustainable tourism in the Third World, ecotourism has
acquired the moral high ground. Indeed, there is often a casual equivalence
drawn between this industry niche and the imperative of sustainable tourism
development. Yet the talking up of ecotourism as ‘sustainable tourism’ (and the
talking down of its Other, the much maligned mass tourism) is not just dinner
party snobbery of the travelling classes. Rather, it has a basis in the claimed
development potential of this form of leisure travel for people living in the rural
Third World.