Ecological tourism in the industrial environment: A new vision

Abstract Ecologization of thinking and hedonization of life are processes that have greatly influenced motives behind ways to spend free time in recent decades. Ecotourism has become a way of exploring unique and exotic natural landscapes and a tool for their preservation Such an interpretation of ecotourism deprives residents of large industrial cities located far from such environmental sites of the opportunity to join the process of ecological cognition. The available sources analyzed by the authors interprete the concept of ecotourism merely through the environmental prism, the prism of the value of natural areas. The concept of ecological tours, which reveal only one aspect of ecology – the problem of protecting natural landscapes within specially protected natural areas/water bodies, is not yet developed either and is only interpreted as nature protection. The authors’ interpretation of ecotourism and excursions as a type of industrial and sustainable tourism in the industrial environment is broader. Ways to settle environmental issues can only be found through understanding their essence. During eco-excursions, visitors can understand the nature and causes of the environmental crisis, emergence of global and local environmental problems and their consequences directly through observation, study, understanding, and experiment under the guidance of a qualified guide. Only real environmental emotional experience gained in the field can act as a driver for forming environmental behavior. The authors set out to interpret ecological tourism and ecological tours through familiarizing visitors with negative consequences of human impact on the environment; to reveal the content, methodological features of preparing and conducting ecological excursions; to perform a statistical analysis of ecological tours and excursions. Based on their own many years’ experience in tour activities, the authors substantiate and characterize their own vision of ecological tourism and ecological excursions in the industrial environment, and establish the specifics of the excursion process related to ecological education and nurturing. The present research highlights problematic aspects of the classical concept of ecological tourism (its main limitation – by merely natural areas), the ecological excursions available in the world tour practice (merely nature-oriented or educational for schoolchildren/students), analyzes the methodological features of organizing and giving ecological excursions (identifies specific features of each stage of developing an ecological excursion, provides examples of methods from their own experience of excursion activities), and summarizes the authors’ experience of ecological excursion activities at the theoretical and practical levels.