Structure and visiting the reserves of leading countries in ecotourism

In February 2024, media published reports about new achievements in ecotourism. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment reported: "About 14.6 million people visited protected areas of federal significance in 2023." This is a new record for trips to protected areas in Russia. For sixth year in a row Kislovodsky National Park has been the country’s most popular reserve, significantly ahead of all competitors: 5.4 million people visited it over the last year. This fact caused a desire to show Russia's achievements against the background of the United States and Australia, the countries, actively developing ecotourism. The study uses the traditional geographical comparative-descriptive method, as well as information retrieval techniques. For this purpose, data, including in the form of diagrams, illustrating the structure of the network of federal protected areas and the total number of visitors in them are provided. The authors briefly describe the most popular national parks of the three leading ecotourism countries. The study shows the dynamics of visits to the leading national parks of each of these states in recent years.