Ecotourism Development and its Regional Monitoring. Insights from Slovakia.

The changing consumer behaviour and growing preferences for purchasing and using environmentally friendly products are influencing destinations to include ecotourism products in their offer. Monitoring and evaluation are essential processes in the long-term development of ecotourism in the destination. The comprehensive set of indicators is an inevitable managerial tool to assess the impact of tourism on destination development. Therefore, the aim of the research is to present a methodology for monitoring the development of ecotourism in a region. The methodology proposed in the case study is derived from the European Tourism Indicators System (ETIS), adapted to the availability of input data at a regional level. The proposed methodology was tested in the Košice region in Slovakia. The article provides recommendation on how and which data need to be collected at the regional level to assess the ecotourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]