Communicating sustainability and ecotourism principles by ecolodges: a global analysis

The purpose of this study was to address the need for a global-scale study of sustainability practices and ecotourism principles in ecolodges with a focus on their communication via the Internet. The study developed an assessment framework to evaluate ecotourism principles and sustainability communication in ecolodges across five dimensions (nature-based focus, the moral imperative, environmental sustainability, community development, and education and research), examined the state of communication of related initiatives by a sample of ecolodges from around a world, and identified areas of improvement for Internet communication. Results indicate high levels of communication across all five dimensions and presence of four distinct groups of ecolodges based on their approach to ecotourism principles communication: engaged communicators, selective communicators, average communicators and poor communicators.