Sustainability in cultural tourism destinations from the perspective of tourists

Abstract

Sustainability is turning into a major idea for tourism destinations and the literature has recognized the significance of sustainable development for any tourism destination. Since marketing is an important driver of sustainability practices, it is vital for the destinations that are trying to become more sustainable to be able to market these attributes to their target markets. Although tourists are recognized as an important stakeholder for sustainable tourism, their attitudes toward sustainability in tourism destinations and the importance that they give to certain sustainability attributes as opposed to others are under-researched topics in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to investigate Turkish tourists’ perceptions of the importance of sustainability attributes in tourism destinations and to determine the tourists’ willingness to pay for these aspects. Socio-cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability are considered, as the study provides a comprehensive model of sustainability attributes of destinations from the perspective of tourists. The investigation combines qualitative procedures, intended to acquire insights into the topic, and quantitative methodology, aimed at obtaining the views of Turkish cultural tourists. A scale is created to measure the importance given to sustainability attributes. Findings indicate that tourists give most importance to cultural and environmental protection and they are more willing to spend more for the environmental attributes. According to the results obtained, recommendations for the communication of sustainability attributes of tourism destinations are provided.