Ecotourism, as a core of sustainable tourism is perceived as very difficult to
organize and – as very demanding - not especially interesting for an average tourist. In
addition, it is often mistaken with green, environmental (nature-based) tourism.
According to its definition, there is no need for maximizing the number of ecotourists,
however, a problem of how to “create” a more conscious and responsible tourist still
remains. Another issue is how to attract people who are looking for something new and
exciting to local tourist resources – natural as well as cultural and provide income for
local communities.
In Poland nature is still very valuable and attractive. It is protected in different ways at
various levels, but most appropriate for developing sustainable tourism and naturebased tourism are landscape parks. That is why the research was held among tourist
visiting areas of some landscape parks in western Poland. Respondents were asked,
among other things, about their preferences of spending time during the holidays,
opinions on (and knowledge of) nature, natural tourist resources and values, nature
protection, nature-based tourism and ecotourism. In addition some theoretical models of
ecotourism and nature-based tourism were elaborated, which will be only mentioned in
this paper.