Assessing ecotourism potential of hiking trails: A framework to incorporate ecological and cultural features and seasonality

• Hiking trail developments rarely integrate ecological and cultural features.
• Seasonality has been neglected in tourism literature.
• This integrated framework considered seasonal differences of these features.
• Our findings highlighted all seasons have potential for recreation.
• Managers can find here a basis to mitigate the impacts of mass tourism.

Recreation and wildlife observations occur often in hiking trails. In terms of recreation planning, few studies have combined ecological and cultural features to assess ecotourism potential of hiking trails. Seasonality has been also neglected in tourism research. In order to disperse tourists over the year and alleviate the negative impacts of mass tourism events, we propose an integrated framework to assess the ecotourism potential of hiking trails that encompasses species, habitats, landscape and local heritage values, and takes into consideration their seasonal differences. By doing so, this methodology aims to contribute to local sustainable development. Our findings showed that, though some attractions may not be available during certain seasons, there are others which can bring tourists to the region all year long. We discuss some of the limitations, as well as future improvements to the use of this framework in trail development.