【Abstract】 Since 1990s,ecotourism has gradually become a hot subject in tourism and geography studies.But most of the existing literature on ecotourism in China discusses only one or several aspects and is short of systematic exposition.Based on a great deal of literature home and abroad,this paper tries to discuss ecotourism systematically.After comparing ecotourism with other similar concept,such as adventure tourism,nature tourism,and reviewing all kinds of definitions on ecotourism,we noticed that if we want to precisely define ecotourism,we must correctly deal with the relationship between ecotourism providers,ecotourists,residents of ecotourism destination and environment.Then,we discuss whether ecotourism is a type of tourism,or a model.At the emergence of ecotourism,whether from the side of ecotourism providers or from the side of ecotourists,ecotourism is a type of tourism.But with the development of ecotourism practices,especially after the emergence of sustainable development theory,researchers are gradually convinced that with the appearance of ecotourism,a new form of tourist development model is shoped.This new model incompletely equals to sustainable tourism development,but it does make effort in this direction.At last,we explain how to apply the concept of ecotourism to the practice of China.Ecotourism begins to emerge when tourism develops to some stage.It is metaphysical by all means to apply the foreign concept of ecotourism mechanically in spite of the existing phase of tourism development in China.But regardless of the tourism development trend,ignoring the world ecotourism market is not correct,either.The right approach is to adopt the reasonable kernel of the foreign ecotourism concept which is compatible with the reality in China,based on the correct analyses of the Chinese tourism reality.更多还原