Concept of Ecotourism

Is Price The Main Influential Factor For Ecotourism Destinations Among Australian Tourists?

As the world is facing environmental crisis, ecotourism is a new feature of the tourism industry in the world to support the conservational efforts to save the natural resources. This new type of tourism involves eco-friendly measures with a purpose to protect and preserve the pristine, fragile and relatively undisturbed natural resources and areas. It includes responsible traveling for conserving the environment and contributing towards improvement of the local communities.

The concept of ecotourism is important because it creates environmental awareness. Over the years, the level of tourism has increased significantly. As there has been environmental degradation also due to emission of greenhouse gases from the energy, transport and industrial sector, the natural resources, such as, the forests, wildlife, air and water are getting affected considerably. Increase in population as well as pollution has cast negative impact on the environment. Hence, the ventures of ecotourism are taken by the tourism industry to contribute in the conservation of the natural resources. In Australia, there are quite a few ecotourism destinations, such as, the Great Barrier Reef region, which are quite popular among the tourists. However, maintaining the amenities for ecotourism incus a slightly higher cost and the tourism authorities have to collect fund through ticketing and donations for the maintenance purpose. Hence, for many people, price plays a major role in choosing an ecotourism destination. Thus, the researcher will conduct the research study to find out whether and how price affects the decision of the tourists while choosing an ecotourism destination in Australia.

Many global and local tourists prefer to travel to the pristine and pleasing locations to gain a new beautiful experience from the locations. However, it is most unfortunate that, these aesthetically beautiful locations are very fragile and susceptible to external impacts or influences. Hence, for ensuring the preservation of these amazing regions for the future generations, the travellers must also contribute in the nature protection programmes. The ecotourism activities promote sustainable travel options, benefitting the local communities, heritage, culture, and minimize the impacts on the environment (Ecotourism.org.au, 2018). These activities are not driven by the profit motives or economic gains but are focused on educating the tourists for adopting green travelling practices.

In Australia, there are few tourism authorities, who promote the ecotourism. Although these organizations are non-profit ones, still they have to collect enough funds for maintaining the green practices and preserving the natural resources in their best condition. These activities and conservational efforts require investment and capital and for that, the travelers also have to contribute (conserve-energy-future.com, 2018). Hence, these ecotourism promoting organizations have put a ticket on these destinations for collecting some of the money needed for these activities. However, many travellers are not satisfied with the price and hence, prefer to skip these destinations. Many studies have been conducted earlier on the ecotourism practices, but the impact of price on the travellers while choosing the destinations in their itinerary has not been explored before. Hence, through this study, the researcher aims to find out if price is the main influential factor for the Australian tourists while opting for an ecotourism destination for travelling.

Importance of Ecotourism as a Sustainable Travel Option

The demographic scope for the research study is the Australian tourists, who prefer to visit the ecotourism destinations but could be influenced by the price of those places. This scope includes all the Australian tourists who prefer to travel for different purposes, such as, leisure, adventure, education and business.

The geographical scope of the study will include the tourists who live within the geographical boundary of the country. They can be natives or citizens of Australia or the migrant population. The participants for the study will be drawn from the customer base of one of the renowned tour operators in Australia, Topdeck, who arranges tours to the ecotourism destinations.

Temporal scope of the study includes the time of conducting the research, which will be the summer months of Australia, that is, from October to March. Summer is the ideal time when the Australians travels most for holidays. Hence, it will be easier to reach out to the participants during this time of the year.

Problem statement:

Perspective of the Australian tourists regarding the price of the ecotourism destinations in Australia is the problem statement of this research study. It aims to study whether the tourists, who travel during the summer months, to different destinations including the ecotourism ones, are being influenced by the prices or not.

Research objectives:

• To evaluate the demand for ecotourism in Australia
• To explore the role of price in influencing the choice of ecotourism destinations among the Australian tourists

Concept of ecotourism

Ecotourism has become an upcoming trend in the tourism industry across the globe. It is also known as green tourism and responsible travel. As the world is adopting sustainable practices in all aspects of life and business for a sustainable future, the tourism industry is no exception as well. The trend of ecotourism or responsible travel has gained immense interest in the recent years and that has outpaced the interest for the conventional sun or sand tourism by a rapidly increasing margin (Fennell, 2014). According to Ecotourism.org.au (2018), ecotourism accounts for 11.4% of the total consumer spending on tourism. In the recent yeas, the environment experts have highlighted the negative impacts of the mass tourism on the tourist destinations in Australia and around the world, which creates the foundation for ecotourism. They have been taking measures to educate the tourists about the degradation of the natural attractions and create awareness about responsible travel for preserving those natural assets. Although the concept is known by many names, the core philosophies are the same. Those say that the travel industry and the tourists must adopt the environmental friendly travel practices to protect the natural and cultural heritage of a tourist destination and to support the local communities for a better sustainable future for all (Peake, Innes and Dyer, 2009).  

Factors Affecting the Demand for Ecotourism Destinations

The United Nations designated 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development (Ecotourism.org.au, 2018). This indicates that, the entire world is now focusing on ecotourism as a major travel principle. As defined by Coria and Calfucura (2012), tourism will only be truly ecofriendly, if it makes a positive impact on not only the ecology of a given destination, but also on the economy of that destination. However, there is some confusion among many that ecotourism is about conserving the nature and the wildlife of a region. In regards to that, it can be said that if the strategy of tourism business or destination development does not result in providing financial benefits for the indigenous people, it cannot be considered as ecotourism (Divisekera, 2013). To fully implement these practices, people must be educated and awareness should be created by authorities, such as, Ecotourism Australia, Global Sustainable Tourism Council, Conservation Volunteers Australia New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage and Parks Australia.

Ecotourism is one type of tourism activity, which is focused mainly on the conservation of the environment along with providing economic benefit to the local communities. The demand for ecotourism based on different factors and various authors have presented those in different angles. As stated by Yousefi and Marzuki (2012), the factors affecting the demand for ecotourism are almost similar to that for the conventional tourism. There are price and non-price factors. The price factors include the cost of travel, ticket price of the destinations, accommodation cost, food and entertainment cost, and local travel cost. If these costs are high, the demand for the destinations will drop. However, Pickering (2010) state that practice of ecotourism or responsible travel is a philosophy that the environmentalists and the nature lovers like to follow by choice. They do not consider the cost of the tourism activities; rather they are concerned about protecting the nature and the indigenous communities. For these types of travellers, price is not a major influential factor for following ecotourism. On the other hand, non-price factors are also important for any type of travelling. For example, the climate of a destination, reputation, safety and security concerns, number of things to do and see, cuisine, and the economic condition of that region are some non-price factors affecting the demand for any travel destination. However, in regards to the influence of non-price factors in case of ecotourism, Mudzengi and Chiutsi (2014) highlight that, since the nature of travel is different than in traditional travel, the non-price factors do not hold much significance in ecotourism. The travellers aim to contribute in improving the economic and social conditions of the tourist destinations and hence, they help to improve some of the non-price demand factors for the destinations, which will help in creating future demand for these destinations.

The Decision Making Process of Ecotourists

The decision making process of the ecotourists also do not follow the process followed for traditional travelling. According to Gray’s theory, people travel for sunlust and wanderlust motivations. The motivation of leaving the familiar place and travelling to an unknown destination to explore the characteristics of the place is known as wanderlust. The other motive is sunlust, in which the motivation comes from a specific need that cannot be satisfied in the travellers own place. These are shopping, entertainment, cultural interest, recreation etc. (Divisekera, 2013) On the other hand, as stated by Yousefi and Marzuki (2012), there are pull and push factors for any destination. The push factors explain the desire for travel while the pull factors are the reasons behind choosing a destination over the other. However, according to E. Ezebilo (2013), the motivations of the ecotourists are not really driven by the above factors. He states that, the eco-travellers go for need recognition, that is, identifying the need to change the environment of a destination; information search by other potential tourists; evaluation of the ecotourism destinations against the alternative destinations; selection of the destination based on ecofriendly options available there, and the post purchase behavior, that is, if the tourist was satisfied from the travelling, he might visit again and also might influence others to visit the place. Hence, it can be said that, there are push and pull factors of the ecotourism destinations, however, those work in a different manner than in the traditional tourism. The ecotourists will need different motivational aspects that help them to adopt the ecofriendly tourism practices and spread the awareness among others (Shemshad and Mohammadi, 2012).

References

conserve-energy-future.com, 2018. What is Ecotourism? Principles, Importance and Benefits of Ecotourism. [online] Conserve Energy Future. Available at: <https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/principles-importance-benefits-ecotourism.php> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Coria, J. and Calfucura, E., 2012. Ecotourism and the development of indigenous communities: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Ecological Economics, [online] 73, pp.47-55. Available at: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800911004538> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Divisekera, S., 2013. Tourism Demand Models: Concepts and Theories. Handbook of Tourism Economics, pp.33-66.

Ezebilo, E., 2013. Choosing Ecotourism Destinations for Vacations: A Decision-Making Process. Asian Social Science, [online] 10(2). Available at: <https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/viewFile/33036/19121> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Ecotourism.org.au, 2018. Why Choose Ecotourism? » Ecotourism Australia. [online] Ecotourism.org.au. Available at: <https://www.ecotourism.org.au/eco-experiences/why-choose-ecotourism/> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Fennell, D.A., 2014. Ecotourism. Routledge.

gstcouncil.org, 2015. Ecotourism Australia. [online] Global Sustainable Tourism Council. Available at: <https://www.gstcouncil.org/ecotourism-australia-approval-h-to/> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Mudzengi, B. and Chiutsi, S., 2014. Socio-political and macro-economic factors influencing ecotourism competitiveness in Zimbabwe. International Journal of Development and Sustainability, [online] 3(2), pp.306-314. Available at: <https://isdsnet.com/ijds-v3n2-6.pdf> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Peake, S., Innes, P. and Dyer, P., 2009. Ecotourism and conservation: factors influencing effective conservation messages. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17(1), pp.107-127.

Pickering, C., 2010. Ten Factors that Affect the Severity of Environmental Impacts of Visitors in Protected Areas. AMBIO, [online] 39(1), pp.70-77. Available at: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357658/> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Shemshad, M. and Mohammadi, I., 2012. Analysis of Factors Affecting the Ecotourism Development. International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development, [online] 2(4), pp.19-24. Available at: <https://ijaud.srbiau.ac.ir/article_575_b06bbb7c17bc44b2554db923cf191517.pdf>.

Yousefi, M. and Marzuki, A., 2012. Travel motivations and the influential factors: the case of Penang, Malaysia. Anatolia, [online] 23(2), pp.169-176. Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13032917.2012.662906> [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].