Prospective tourist preferences for sustainable tourism development in Small Island Developing States

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Abstract

Tourism development is crucial for economic growth in Small Island Developing States, but its management involves trade-offs between ecosystem services and social and cultural identities. This paper aims to contribute to the debate around the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through an investigation of the sustainable management of tourism and coastal ecosystem services. The paper presents a choice experiment and latent factor analysis to disentangle relevant aspects of sustainable tourism in Small Island Developing States for potential visitors. Willingness to pay is reported for the different factors revealing preferences variability for previous and prospective visitors. Pro-environmental attitudes influence individual tastes and policy makers should consider these traits in order to attract visitors and private funding. Our findings show that prospective tourists are interested in the wider aspects of the tourism experience which in turn require the careful management of social and environmental resources in Small Island Developing States.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104178
JournalTourism Management
Volume82
Early online date8 Jul 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2021

Keywords

  • Choice experiment
  • Ecosystem services
  • Latent factor analysis
  • Small islands developing states
  • Sustainable tourism

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