Abstract: With the comprehensive implementation of China′s national park system, ecotourism has become a primary avenue for the public to engage with national parks and experience their ecosystems. However, in practice, the educational function of ecotourism remains underdeveloped, largely remaining at a superficial stage that fails to foster sustained ecological awareness and pro-environmental behavior among visitors. Nature education, as a systematic approach to cultivating ecological consciousness and environmental responsibility awareness, holds strong complementarity with ecotourism within national parks. The effective integration of these two fields is crucial for enhancing the public and conservation value of national parks. Based on the social-ecological systems (SES) theory and experiential learning theory (ELT), this study constructs an integrated SES-ELT analytical framework to explore the conceptual logic, institutional foundations, and operational mechanisms for merging ecotourism and nature education. Taking Wuyishan National Park-a site recognized as both a world natural heritage and a world cultural heritage site-as an empirical case, the study systematically analyzes the current state of integration between ecotourism and nature education, and identifies core structural issues that hinder effective integration. The findings reveal several persistent challenges in current practices that impede the transformation of ecological experiences into sustained ecological awareness and behavior. These challenges include mismatched service delivery due to visitor heterogeneity, insufficient cross-sector collaboration stemming from parallel governance structures, superficial interpretation and educational content, and fragmented experiential learning processes. Collectively, these constraints weaken the educational potential of ecotourism and diminish its effectiveness in supporting long-term conservation objectives. This study argues that integrating ecotourism and nature education is not merely about combining tourism and educational functions superficially. Meaningful integration requires deeply embedding educational processes within recreational experiences to establish a complete experiential learning cycle encompassing concrete experiences, reflective observation, conceptual understanding, and practical application. Through this process, ecological values can be more effectively communicated, internalized, and translated into public environmental responsibility and action. Based on the integrated SES-ELT analytical framework and empirical findings from Wuyishan National Park, this study proposes four interrelated pathways for integrated development: 1) Establish a tiered service model that aligns educational content with the heterogeneous cognitive capacities and participation levels of different visitor groups; 2) Develop a collaborative governance and operational mechanism that strengthens cross-sectoral collaboration and resource integration; 3) Optimize interpretation and educational systems based on experiential learning principles to enhance cognitive guidance and reflective engagement; and 4) Implement a digital empowerment mechanism that supports sustained public participation and extend learning beyond on-site visits. Theoretically, this study advances the understanding of how ecotourism generates educational value in national parks by integrating dual perspectives from SES and ELT. Practically, the findings offer policy-relevant insights for national park managers to promote the integration of ecotourism and nature education, enhance public engagement, and contribute to the goals of public accessibility and high-quality development within the national park system.