Promoted for more than two decades, ecotourism has proven to have economic, social, and environmental benefits. Yet, for some ecotourism destinations, the ecotourism principles of environmental protection and social responsibility are not adequately implemented in practice. Suitability analysis is a useful tool for applying these principles. The First Meander of the Yellow River (FMYR) is an important area due to its roles in water conservation and as an ecological barrier. The sustainability of socio-economic activity and the ecosystem in this area is related not only to the development of the provincial region but also to that of the loess plateau, even in North China. It is important to develop industries such as ecotourism and grazing according to local conditions of each site. Taking the case of FMYR, this study finds that both suitability analysis and functional zoning are effective tools for ecotourism development according to site-specific conditions. We identified and mapped areas suitable for ecotourism in the FMYR, based on functional zoning. We found that suitability evaluation of suitability to ecotourism based on functional zoning is both scientific and feasible. This result may help to identify suitable areas for ecotourism and determine whether future development and land use can be modified in Maqu county. As for suitability analysis, areas are classified based on six criteria representing "naturalness" (distance from water area, presence of grassland, presence of forest, height, slope, and remoteness). We used GIS to overlay the criteria onto the site of interest, incorporating experts' opinions for weight of each criterion by AHP. Experts weighed the distance from water area most heavily, while height was weighed least heavily. Results showed that classes III, IV, and V, presenting the sites best suited to ecotourism, cover most of the area, implying a high potential for wetland-based ecotourism development. Classes IV and V mainly cover wetlands, rivers, and high-coverage grasslands. With respect to functional zoning, areas are divided into three types of functional zones and eight types of functional sub-zones, based on the suitability map. Result shows that FMYR is suitable for the entire spectrum of ecotourism, from hard to soft. The promoted ecotourism development zone covers the largest area, while moderate ecotourism development zone covers the smallest area. In terms of functional sub-zones, the wetland-based ecotourism area covers a large part of FMYR, suggesting its ecological significance for future development; promoting hard wetland-based ecotourism for these sites should be a prospective development strategy. The analysis and result of each functional zone and its sub-zones suggest that each zone has dominant ecological characteristics and characteristic service functions; therefore, development of ecotourism must be based on the hard-soft spectrum. In all, intensive tourism projects and activities must be prohibited in sites with higher classes of suitability or in harder ecotourism zones, while experience-based ecotourism products could be moderately developed in areas with lower naturalness rating.