Tourism and environment: Attitude toward responsible tourism Carlota Lorenzo-Romero University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Transcription

1 Tourism and environment: Attitude toward responsible tourism Carlota Lorenzo-Romero University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain Giacomo Del-Chiappa University of Sassary, Italy

2 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2. METHODOLOGY 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

3 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS Tourism which leads to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems Based on sustainable tourism Responsible tourism Type of tourism which respect the host s natural, built, and cultural environments and the interests of all parties concerned (Smith, 1990) CURRENT TENDENCES Become a way of travelling more than simply typology of tourism (Clifton & Benson, 2006) Become a proper way to conceive holidays (Stanford, 2008) Important part of an individual s lifestyle (Budeanu et al., 2007)

4 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS RESEARCH PURPOSE To contribute to a deeply undersanding of the responsible tourism phenomenon using a demand-side approach and carrying out an empirical investigation on a sample of Italian people, country whose main economic engine is the tourism, in order to analyze the motivations and attitudes that cause to a tourist a higher or lower responsible behaviour RESEARCH QUESTIONS RQ1: Have tourists attitude and perceptions toward the responsible tourism development homogeneous? RQ2: Do they change based on their socio-economic and demographic characteristics (gender, age, education, occupation, income, and civil status)?

5 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2. METHODOLOGY 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

6 2. METHODOLOGY Population Italian responsible tourists Sample Size 1,252 final cases Information Acquisition Procedure Self-administered online survey Fieldwork April-May 2013 Sampling procedure Statistical technique Software Quota sampling (responsible tourists who practice, at least, 3 practices of 20 proposed by Buckley, 2002; Budeanu, 2005, 2007; Connel et al. 2009; Schartz et al., 2008, and so on) Factorial Analysis, Latent segmentation SPSS, EQS, Latent Gold

7 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2. METHODOLOGY 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

8 Items (I) about practices of responsible tourism Factor 1. Contribution to the community and local economy Factor 2. Demand for responsibility to the business offered Factor 3. Responsibility toward the environment I1 - Buying from local and typical merchants.447 I2 - Buying authentic and locally produced goods.595 I4 - Favoring restaurants offering typical menu with local food.608 I11 - Being in touch with the real life of the destination.655 I12 - Being interested towards the several aspects and characteristics of the local community I13 - To express respect toward the local people and their tradition and life style.585 I14- To look for products that represents the authenticity of the place.732 I15 - Protecting the historical and archeological sites of the destination.576 I16 - Being in contact with traditions and culture of the local community.750 I18 - Collecting information about the history and culture of the destination.663 I3 Favoring environmentally friendly accommodations.646 I5 Favoring accommodation and restaurant where local people are employed.529 I6 Favoring local, small size typical accommodation without sophisticated facilities.579 I7 To use environmentally friendly transport services in order to minimize the negative impacts of travelling I17 Denouncing improper and damaging behaviors to competent authorities.592 I19 Asking the tour operator for written codes of conduct to guarantee good working conditions, protection of the environment and support to the local community in the destination I20 Preserving the authenticity of the destination I8 Respecting the natural resources of the destination I9 Limiting the usage of natural resources I10 - Limiting the production of garbage % Variance explained

9 Construct Indicator Loading Factor 1. Contribution to the community and local economy Factor 2. Demand for responsibility to the business offered Internal consistency (reliability) and convergent validity Robust t- value I I I I I I I I I I I I I Crobach s alpha Composite Reliability (CR) Average Variance Extracted (AVE) Factor 3. I Responsibilit y toward the I environment I Robust goodness of fit index: S-Bχ 2 (101 df) = (p=0.000); NFI=.834; NNFI=.849; CFI=.873; RMSEA=.057. All statistics have been extracted through robust method due to the Mardia s coefficient normalized estimation >5.00. The normalized estimate = suggests clearly a non-normal sample. S-Bχ 2 : Satorra-Bentler scale Chi-Square - df: Degree of freedom - NFI: Normed Fit Index - NNFI: Non-Normed Fit Index - CFI: Comparative Fit Index - RMSEA: Root Mean-Square Error of Approximation 9

10 Discriminant validity of the theoretical construct measured F1 F2 F3 F1.505 [.134;.594] [.579;.715] F [.637;.765] F The diagonal represents the AVE, while above the diagonal the 95% confidence interval for the estimated factors correlations is provided (any intervals contain value 1); below the diagonal, the shared variance (squared correlations) is represented (always less than the corresponding AVE). 10

11 VAR. ITEMS MEASURED CATEGORIES I N D I C A T O R S C O V A R I A T E S F1- Contribution to the community and local economy F2- Demand for responsibility to the business offered F3- Responsibility toward the environment Gender Civil status Age Education Occupation Monthly household income 1=Not at all 9=Very much Male Female Single Married/couple Divorced Widow years old More than 60 Primary school High school Secondary school University degree Master/PhD Executive/manager Employee Self-employed Teacher/Professor Student Retired Unemployed Other Less than 1,000 euros 1,001-2,000 2,001-3,000 3,001-4,000 4,001-5,000 5,001-6,000 6,001-7,000 More than 7,000

12 Number of conglomerates LL BIC(LL) Npar Class.Err. E s R 2 1-Cluster Cluster Cluster Cluster Cluster Cluster LL=log-likelihood; BIC=Bayesian information criterion; Npar=number of parameters; Class.Err.=classification error; E s = entropy statistic (entropy R-squared); R 2 =Standard R-squared The model fit was evaluated according to the Bayesian Infomation Criterion (BIC). The lowest BIC value was considered as the best model indicator (Vermut and Magidson, 2002, 2005) 12

13 Profile of responsible tourists (indicators): Attitude about responsible tourism and environment ABSOLUTE RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS MOTIVATED RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS INTENTIONAL RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS SKEPTICAL RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS Wald p-value R 2 Cluster Size 64.28% 11.97% 19.06% 4.69% Indicators F1-Contribution to the community and local economy e F2- Demand for responsability to the business offered e F3- Responsability toward the environment e Wald statistic evaluates the statistical significance within a grop of estimated parameters. For all indicators a significant p-value associated with the Wald statistics confirm that each indicator discriminates between the clusters in a significant way. 13

14 Profile of Italian responsible tourists (covariates): Descriptive criteria DESCRIPTIVE CRITERIA Gender Age Education Occupation Income (monthly) Civil Status CATEGORIES ABSOLUTE RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS MOTIVATED RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS INTENTIONAL RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS SKEPTICAL RESPONSIBLE TOURISTS Male 26.10% 25.35% 50.12% 71.31% Female 73.84% 74.65% 49.88% 28.69% years old 17.63% 16.17% 25.67% 31.77% % 44.71% 36.91% 35.53% % 24.25% 20.74% 14.13% % 13.35% 15.18% 14.43% More than % 1.52% 1.50% 4.14% High school.58% 3.72%.68% 3.73% Secondary school 31.62% 23.45% 33.19% 32.14% University degree 45.52% 56.60% 43.05% 40.07% Master/PhD 22.28% 16.23% 23.08% 24.06% Executive/Manager 4.78% 4.31% 4.45% 3.13% Employee 31.00% 32.45% 38.65% 13.34% Self-employed 17.52% 25.77% 11.42% 18.72% Teacher/Professor 4.07% 3.26% 4.30% 16.24% Student 18.94% 15.79% 22.48% 25.69% Retired 8.69% 2.57% 6.28% 12.33% Unemployed 14.13% 14.33% 9.08% 8.01% Other.87% 1.52% 3.34% 2.55% Less than 1,000 euros 14.22% 15.83% 11.31% 5.94% 1,000-2, % 27.16% 38.92% 27.18% 2,001-4, % 37.65% 36.50% 38.61% More than 4, % 19.36% 13.27% 28.27% Single 53.31% 49.47% 49.21% 60.13% Married/in couple 42.92% 44.97% 46.52% 37.38% Divorced 3.77% 4.09% 2.25% 2.48% Widow.00% 1.47% 2.02%.00% Wald p-value e The significant percentages of obtained results ( 90% confidence level) have been marked in bold, per each cluster, based on a comparison between four clusters. 14

15 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2. METHODOLOGY 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

16 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH Responsible tourist seems to be in search of experiences that allow them to explore the untouched, the unexposed and the real life rooted in the host destination These experiences, as reported by the interviewees, are extraordinary and embedded of emotions and, furthermore, bring people that live them to think that something of important and worthy have occurred in their life. The aim of the study was to contribute to a deeply understanding of the responsible tourism phenomenon using a demand-side approach and carrying out an empirical investigation on a sample of Italian responsible tourists. 16

17 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH Absolute responsible tourist, although is not considered as perfect responsible tourist because it has not obtain the maximum main (9 points) in all three analyzed factors, is the group more sensible toward the responsible tourism specially in the case of the environment. This group is female with middle age, whose occupation is executive/manager with medium/high salary. Decreasing in mean the degree of positive attitude toward responsible tourism, the motivated responsible tourist, although it is a group with less number of percentage that intentional responsible tourist segment, shows high contribution and responsibility to the community and, specially, towards environment. It is composed especially by female, older than first analyzed group, with University studies and self-employed (although high percentage of unemployed), and with low incomes. With less degree of positive perception toward responsible tourism, we have obtained the intentional responsible tourists group characterized because they are older with secondary school, employed and with medium salary. Skeptical responsible tourist group is composed especially by young men, students, singles, and high income. It shows indecisive opinion towards responsible tourism. 17

18 4. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH MANAGERIAL IMPLICATION It would be necessary to invest more and better in social, environmental and marketing communication activities to young people and with less studies and salary in order to spread, on the one hand, the values of responsibility and sobriety in the tourist community (demand and offer) and, on the other hand, the information about the existence of responsible and sustainable tourist product. MAIN LIMITATION It is focused on a sample of responsible tourists from one just country (Italy). FUTURE RESEARCH Opportunity to repeat the study internationally in order to analyze if responsible tourists of different nationality express a different degree of responsibility and motivations. It could be interesting to focus future researches on the different factors. 18

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20 Tourism and environment: Attitude toward responsible tourism Carlota Lorenzo-Romero University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain Giacomo Del-Chiappa University of Sassary, Italy