**2.2. Impacts of ecotourism**

Okello [44] conducted a research in Kuku Community Conservation Area (KCCA) in Kenya to assess ethical, ecological, economic and management issues at community level with the help of semi-structured questionnaire to visitors and tour companies.

Degang and Xiaoting [14] conducted a study in Nongke Village of Chengdu City to assess the concepts and criteria of rural tourism and ecotourism with the help of field work, small-scaled informal discussion, unstructured interviews and data from local tourism management.

Genzong et al. [17] conducted a research in Wuzhishan Mountain Region of China to identify the information that incorporates ecotourism related values. Sixty-seven questionnaires were administered to assess how the local government officials saw the development of tourism as an important priority in the region through four phases: profiling the community, analyzing trends, creating the vision, and developing an action plan.

Hitchner et al. [45] conducted a study in Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysia, and the Kerayan Highlands of Kalimantan, Indonesia to examine the current state of community-based transboundary ecotourism. The study was conducted with the help of interviews with local guides, homestay owners, urban-based tour operators, tourism promotion centers and agencies; intercommunity dialogues regarding transboundary ecotourism and analysis of promotional materials on ecotourism; comments in the visitors' books of lodges, tourists' websites and travel blogs.

Beaumont [46] conducted a study to identify ecotourists' environmental concern for sustain‐ ability in Australia. For this, 243 respondents having ecotourism experience were surveyed based on the nature and learning criteria of previous segmentation studies. Pro-environmental attitudes were measured as an indication of their sustainability.

Zhuang et al. [47] conducted a study in Laojunshan area of Northwestern Yunnan Province in Western China to examine an ecotourism demonstration project. They analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the primary actors such as government, private business, NGO, and local people to evaluate the potential for the development of ecotourism in the current institutional environment in China. In the first stage, government documents and GEI reports from the Laojunshan Ecotourism Project were reviewed to develop a guide for semi-structured interviews. Key stakeholders from different institutions were identified in collaboration with GEI staff. Field interviews were conducted by the first author using a fairly open framework for focused conversations with a core set of questions. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis and an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) were used to analyze the data.

K.C. et al. [5] conducted a study in the Ghandruk Village Development Committee of Anna‐ purna Conservation Area, Nepal to assess the impacts of ecotourism on environmental conservation, social and cultural heritage preservation, economic development and enhance‐ ment of livelihoods. Two hundred and forty two households were interviewed, followed by three focus group discussions and five key informant interviews.
