How to turn tourism into a conservation strategy

A protected forest doesn't care about a mission statement.

It responds to how many people walk its trails, where they step and whether the money tourism brings is enough to keep rangers paid and habitat intact.

For decades, tourism has been promoted as a force for conservation. The logic is straightforward. When landscapes, wildlife and cultural heritage create economic value, communities and governments have a stronger reason to protect them.

In many places, that promise has been fulfilled. Tourism revenue helps fund protected areas, support local livelihoods and create incentives for conservation that might not otherwise exist.

Yet the relationship is not quite that simple.

The visitor who pays an entrance fee also leaves a footprint. The destination dependent on tourism revenue can find itself grappling with overcrowded trails, stressed ecosystems and increased pressure to accommodate more visitors. Success can become its own challenge.

That tension has led conservation practitioners, destination managers and tourism leaders around the world to rethink what successful nature-based tourism looks like.

What if the goal isn't simply to reduce harm? What if tourism could actively contribute to the long-term health of the places it depends on?

That question sits at the center of a growing movement known as nature-positive tourism.

Beyond doing less harm

Nature-positive tourism raises the standard for success. Instead of focusing only on minimizing negative impacts, it aims to create measurable benefits for nature.

That might mean protecting habitat, supporting species recovery, improving ecosystem health or strengthening local stewardship of protected areas.

The idea is compelling. The challenge is making it work in practice.

Most tourism organizations don't struggle because they lack a commitment to conservation. They struggle because conservation goals are easier to announce than they are to operationalize.

Kelly Bricker, associate dean and director of Arizona State University's School of Community Resources and Development, vice chair of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council and a past president of The International Ecotourism Society, has spent decades studying tourism as a conservation tool. Her work highlights a reality many organizations eventually encounter.

Vision matters. Systems matter more.

A commitment to conservation only becomes meaningful when it shapes decisions about visitor numbers, staffing, infrastructure, monitoring and long-term management.

Without those systems, even well-intentioned tourism can slowly degrade the places it depends on.

When has a place reached its limit?

One of the most difficult questions in tourism management is determining how much pressure a place can absorb before ecological conditions begin to change.

Researchers refer to this as carrying capacity, but the concept is surprisingly practical.

Megha Budruk, whose research focuses on visitor management and carrying capacity in parks and protected areas, helps managers move beyond vague concerns about crowding and identify measurable indicators instead.

Those indicators might include trail conditions, water quality, vegetation health or wildlife sightings.

The goal is to understand how an ecosystem is responding before problems become difficult to reverse.

Each indicator is paired with a threshold and each threshold is paired with a response.

Managers might reduce group sizes, redirect visitors or temporarily close an area for recovery. What matters is that decisions are made before ecological damage becomes the new normal.

In nature-positive tourism, limits are not a constraint on success. They are part of the strategy that makes success possible.

Can tourism pay for conservation?

Tourism's greatest promise has always been its ability to generate value from protecting a place rather than extracting from it.

But that promise depends on more than visitor spending. It depends on whether the benefits reach the people who live alongside protected areas.

Placide Nkurunziza Niragire sees that challenge firsthand at Rwanda's Gishwati-Mukura National Park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve rebuilt after decades of environmental degradation. His work focuses on strengthening partnerships between nearby communities and the park while helping reduce conflict between people and wildlife.

The lesson extends far beyond Rwanda.

Conservation efforts tend to be more durable when local communities share in the benefits of protecting a place. When conservation supports livelihoods and creates opportunity, stewardship becomes easier to sustain over the long term.

The most successful nature-positive tourism models recognize that healthy ecosystems, thriving communities and economic viability are connected goals, not competing ones.

Building the skills to lead

As nature-positive tourism moves from aspiration to practice, organizations increasingly need professionals who can navigate conservation, tourism and community priorities at the same time.

That requires frameworks for decision-making, visitor management, governance and long-term planning.

Those challenges form the foundation of Arizona State University's Conservation Futures Academy's Nature-Positive Tourism course.

Developed with Bricker, Budruk and Nkurunziza Niragire, the course explores how destinations and protected areas around the world are putting these ideas into practice. Participants examine real-world case studies, learn how to assess ecological limits and develop strategies that balance visitor experiences with conservation outcomes.

By the end of the course, learners build a practical proposal they can adapt to their own organization, destination or protected area.

Why this work matters now

Tourism continues to grow in many parts of the world. At the same time, ecosystems face increasing pressure from habitat loss, changing environmental conditions and competing demands on land and resources.

Those realities are forcing organizations to confront the difficult question of how to welcome people into nature without undermining the places they came to experience.

Nature-positive tourism offers a framework for making better decisions.

For practitioners working at the intersection of tourism and conservation, that may be one of the most important skills the future demands.

Learn more about the Nature-Positive Tourism course from ASU’s Conservation Futures Academy.