While New Jersey's coastal tourism industry clearly depends on conventional attractions and activities like its beaches, boardwalks, and family resorts, there is a growing trend toward ecotourism, a travel alternative expected to explode in the next millennium. Broadly defined, it's responsible travel that encompasses natural and cultural resources, while conserving and sustaining environments and local economies. Ecotours recognize the priceless value of natural, cultural and heritage resources that serve to relieve the stress borne of the frantic pace of modern life, places where rest and rehabilitation are important commodities. Ecotourism often encompasses the cultural fabric of a location, so that such widely divergent themes as maritime history, historic sailing vessels, light houses, nature centers, aquaria, fish ports, sea ports, historic coastal communities, and decoy carving are all components.
Ecotourism can involve birding, hiking, biking, canoeing, hunting, and fishing.
The Lakota Wolf Preserve, a stunning natural habitat for wolves in Northern NJ, recently won the Governor s Tourism Award for Best Ecotourism Site. In a recent survey, more than eight million Americans responded that they had already taken an ecotour, and an additional 35 million said they were likely to do so in the next three years. And in 1992, ecotourism generated more than two billion dollars in national revenues. According to the Division of Travel and Tourism , the tourist economy is New Jersey's number one economic sector. As a singular example, New Jersey's coast is an important, even vital, stop in the global migration of many birds.