Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 350 Main Street, Malden, MA02148, USA Sociologia Ruralis, Vol 43, Number 1, January 2003 ©European Society for Rural Sociology ISSN 0038−0199 Ecotourism Experiences in Visitors’ Books of a Greek Reserve: a Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective Anastasia G. Stamou and Stephanos Paraskevopoulos T he increasing demand of post-industrial societies for ‘green’ experiences, coupled with growing recognition of the environmental degradation caused by mass tourism, once characterised as ‘smokeless or clean industry’, and the need to provide economic benefts for rural communities from their environmental capital, have led to the development of ecotourism. Despite its widespread expansion, however, ecotourism is still regarded as a rather nebulous concept. The literature nonetheless does reveal a degree of agreement on some specifc defning principles (Ceballos- Lascurain, cited in Boo 1990; Ecotourism Society 1991; Wight 1993; Orams 1995; Black 1996; Ki Lee et al. 1998; Kimmel 1999; Weaver 2001), allowing the common distinction between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ versions of ecotourism (Weaver 2001) 1. The conservation of the natural environment, provision of income to local people, and organization of both recreational activities and environmental learning experiences for visitors are held to be the common defning components of ecotourism. Thus, eco-tourism might be interpreted as a form of ecological modernization (e.g. Hajer 1995; Mol 1995) 2 , by reconciling two traditionally ‘antagonistic’ components of the economy, tourism (income and recreational activities), and environmentalism (conservation and environmental learning). Moreover, such a conceptualisation distinguishes ecotourism from ‘nature-based’ tourism, which involves a tourist activity located in nature that does not necessarily contribute to the overall well- being of the environment, that is, it constitutes a ‘passive participant’, with people engaging in it having few, if any, educative motives (Orams 1995). In reality, however, ecotourism continues to defy clear practical differentiation. It has been widely claimed that the economic aspects of eco-tourism override the environmentalist ones (eco-tourism often being a consumerist activity with a green wrapping) and as such is little different from nature-based tourism (Wight 1993; Burton 1998; Sirakaya and McLellan 1998; Ryan et al. 1999; Muller 2000; Buckley 2001; Mühlhäusler and Peace 2001). Thus, rather than being a quality label like other eco-labels (Buckley 2001), ecotourism chiefy functions as a market mechanism through which consumers attenuate their guilt with respect to the environment (Ryan