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1. Introduction
With a continued growth trend, these days tourism has become one of the largest and most significant economic sectors of the world (Telfer and Sharpley, 2008; Sharpley, 2009; Western, 2013; UNWTO, 2019). Almost in all corners of the globe, the tourism sector continues to make significant contributions in terms of employment creation and generation of foreign revenue (UNWTO, 2018; WTTC, 2019b). For instance, in 2018 tourism contributed 10.4% of the world's GDP (US$8.8tn) and created 319 million jobs (WTTC, 2019c). Moreover, tourism plays a role in the socioeconomic development and livelihood improvement of poor communities through its direct, indirect and induced effects (Honey and Gilpin, 2009; Sharpley, 2009; Graci, 2013).
Tourism provides developing nations, that are weaker in industrial products and other sophisticated trading items but rich in natural and cultural resources, with substantial benefits as a fundamental source of their foreign exchange (Telfer and Sharpley, 2008; Carr et al., 2016). Mitchell and Ashely (2010) uncovered that in 2007 tourist spending was US$295bn in developing countries, almost three times larger than the amount of official development aid deployed in developing nations. Given tourist attractions of developing countries are predominantly nature and culture-based (Hawkins and Khan, 1998; Deng et al., 2002), the socioeconomic impact of ecotourism in the developing world is profound (Stanciulescu and Felicetti, 2020). In light of that, ecotourism can be considered as the world’s largest fruitful and effective transfer of cash from a developed region to the developing nations. Tourism has been a powerful tool for economic development in developing countries, as gross revenues from the tourism industry increased by 154% per year between 1990 and 2000 in developing countries (Wood, 2007). Moreover, tourism has been identified as a significant economic sector in most of the world’s impoverished countries (Ashley et al., 2000). Wood (2007) also noted that 41 of the 50 poorest countries earn over 10% of their exports from tourism. According to Honey and Gilpin (2009), tourism is a key foreign exchange earner for 83% of developing countries and the leading export earner for one-third of the world’s poorest countries. Furthermore, for the world’s 40 poorest countries, tourism is the second-most important source of foreign exchange after oil (TIES, 2006). The sheer volume of facts in...