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RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Author : Jorge E. Araña, Gianluca Goffi & Carmelo J. León
School/Work Place : Institute of Tourism and Sustainable Economic Development (TIDES) University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Contact : jorge.arana@ulpgc.es
Year : 2016

There is an increasing concern for environmental and social issues among international travelers. As a consequence, many tourist corporations have been exploring the implementation of Social Responsibility (SR) policies as a tool to gain competitiveness advantages. The available evidence seems to point out that these policies are not effectively influencing tourism demand (Font et al., 2012; Juvan & Dolnicar, 2014).

In this study we explore this issue by designing two Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs). The first DCE was aimed at measuring visitors’ willingness to pay (WTP) for different SR actions. In particular the most valued policies were: (i) Labor conditions, (ii) Environmental issues, (iii) Local Community relations; iv) Animal welfare. Although there were some clear differences for SR actions among nationalities (e.g. “cultural bias”) the results show that tourists are willingness to travel more often, and willingness to pay more money for their trips if SR policies are implemented and properly communicated. In terms of importance, the dimensions were ranked as follows: (1) Environment; (2) Labor; (3) Social Projects for the Local Community. DCE results are shown that visitor’ preferences for SR policies were quite heterogeneous among the population. In particular it was found that SR preferences among the population could be characterized by a small segment of the population holding high WTP for such policies and a large portion of the population with low levels of WTP.

While all SR activities were discovered to have a positive influence on tourists choices, there still exist a large controversy estimating the real impact of SR policies on tourism demand. In order to account for potential explanations of this issue, a second DCE was implemented to elicit Tour Operators (TOs)’ perception of tourist preferences (and behavior) when facing with information of alternative SR actions during the tourist package buying process. The results show that there were not statistical differences among TOs perception of visitors’ preferences and overall mean preference for the visitors’ sample. However, TOs responses do not seem to account for the existence of several segments in the population. A further de-briefing study was implemented finding that the two more plausible explanations for the gap among SR preference levels and implementation are: i) Demand heterogeneity; ii) Markets inefficiencies in providers at the destination. Further actions aimed at improving SR communication strategies to reach specific market segments and to improve suppliers’ market efficiency at the destination. 


List of Articles
No. Subject Viewssort Date
314 Think Tank XII Evaluation of the accessibility of Monterrey's Tourism... file 2453 Nov 06, 2013

Despite several declarations, policies and regulations that seek to protect their rights, people with disabilities still encounter several constrains that impede their full participation in society, and, in particular, their access to and en...

Author: Blanca A. Camargo, Isabel Sánchez, Fátima Guajardo & Alejandro García 

Year: 2012 

313 Think Tank VII Social Responsibility and Innovation on Trafficking an... file 2460 Oct 13, 2013

Ethical questions related to globalization, human rights, unfair labor practices and trans-boundary exchanges of capital and work force create ever more complex challenges for the tourism sustainability agenda. In recent years, the tourism i...

Author: Camelia Tepelus 

Year: 2007 

312 Think Tank IX Ethical Confusion and Confusion of Ethics: Unpacking t... file 2464 Oct 13, 2013

For many decades authors (see Sontag, 1976, Baederholt, 2006, Chalfern, 1979, Crang, 1997) have recognised the fundamental role of photography within tourism. Many such as Urry (1999, 2002), Crouch (2000, 2002) and Crouch & Lubbren (200...

Author: Caroline Scarles 

Year: 2009 

311 Think Tank VII Outfitting and Guiding as Sustainable Tourism file 2526 Oct 13, 2013

The antecedents of the modern outfitter are numerous and varied, reaching far back into mythology, allegoric literature, history, and geographic exploration. Throughout history, guides have played two distinct roles, the pathfinder and the m...

Author: Norma Nickerson 

Year: 2007 

310 Think Tank IV A Theoretical Perspective of Triple Bottom Line Report... file 2587 Oct 13, 2013

Triple Bottom Line is defined and explained within the context of a broad philosophical approach to business and a more narrow perspective of reporting performance. The impact of the broader notion of sustainable development, with its macro ...

Author: Jeffrey Faux 

Year: 2004 

309 Think Tank IX Recreation Specialisation and Destination Image: A cas... file 2592 Oct 13, 2013

Papua New Guinea (PNG) should be to Australia what Costa Rica and Belize are to the USA – a proximate and successful tourist destination that attracts sustainable numbers of tourists drawn to the extraordinary diversity of endemic wildlife,...

Author: Kevin Lyons, Kevin Markwell & Patricia Johnson 

Year: 2009 

308 Think Tank XIV Welcoming Chinese Visitors and the Easternization of t... file 2617 Jun 26, 2014

Tourism academics, practitioners, governments and agencies around the world are in general agreement about the future of tourism in what commentators have tagged The Asian Century. Assuming demographic and economic conditions persist, the in...

Author: Patricia C. Johnson 

Year: 2014 

307 Think Tank XVII Transit Tours for Airport Passengers – Issues and Chal... file 2630 Aug 17, 2017

Since the advent of liberalisation of the aviation industry in the late 1970s, many countries have adopted the liberal policy in air transport and entered bilateral air service agreements, often referred to as “open skies agreements” (OSAs),...

Author: Priscilla Chau Min Poon 

Year: 2017 

306 Think Tank IX Values: Dollars, trees or feelings? file 2644 Oct 13, 2013

The importance of values to tourism is but one aspect of the importance of values in human interactions with the natural environment and even more broadly to the human condition. However, attempts to understand the impact of values on behav...

Author: Denise Dillon 

Year: 2009 

305 Think Tank XIV Exploring Youth Perspectives on Quality of Life and To... file 2712 Jun 26, 2014

The concept of Quality of Life (QoL) is implicit in conceptualisations of tourism, especially those used to develop and guide tourism policy and planning. At the individual level it is assumed that travel offers a number of different ways to...

Author: Anna Blackman, Gianna Moscardo, Andrea Schurmann & Laurie Murphy 

Year: 2014 

304 Think Tank XI Use of Cases in an Ethical Teaching Resource for Touri... file 2718 Oct 14, 2013

Ethical problems are an integral part of all professions and academic disciplines (Clarkeburn, 2002). However, it is recognised that the increasing application of technology by students in research is not always matched by consideration of ...

Author: Carl Cater 

Year: 2011 

303 Think Tank XV The role of souvenir vendors in the cultural sustainab... file 2741 Jul 27, 2015

The research investigated the role of souvenir vendors in sustaining the social-cultural authenticity of Chichen Itza’s host community, a Mexican UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) (UNESCO, 2015a). The case study evaluated the Maya-descent ven...

Author: Ady Milman 

Year: 2015 

302 Think Tank VI How Sophisticated is the level of E-Commerce Adoption ... file 2762 Oct 13, 2013

The research aims to develop a conceptual model of e-commerce adoption in tourism enterprises. The paper begins with a literature review identifying the opportunities and competitive advantage for tourism enterprises associated with E-commer...

Author: Nina Mistilis & John D’Ambra 

Year: 2006 

301 Think Tank V An Economic Explanation of the Net Benefits of Tourism... file 2766 Oct 13, 2013

International tourism is increasingly viewed as one of the best opportunities for a sustainable economic and social development of developing countries. There is also an increasing concern from public policy makers as to whether mass tourism...

Author: Mondher Sahli & Jean-Jacques Nowak 

Year: 2005 

300 Think Tank XIX Designing sustainable tourist experiences – (how) does... file 2783 Oct 23, 2019

Key words: Nature Parks, sustainable tourism, customer journey, sustainable development, behaviour change Page: 188-193 Designing sustainable tourist experiences.pdf Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ tabl...

Author: Birgit Reutz 

Year: 2019 

299 Think Tank XII Tourist Cards - Experiences with Soft Mobility in Germ... file 2804 Nov 06, 2013

An increasing number of destinations face the negative sides of tourism transport. Especially, the motorized (individual) traffic can cause ecological problems due to a risen traffic volume, noise and air pollution or its negative effects on...

Author: Dorothea Dürkop & Sven Gross 

Year: 2012 

298 Think Tank VIII A Tool for Improving the Sustainability of Tourism Ind... file 2809 Oct 13, 2013

The tourism industry’s interest in sustainable management has increased in exponential proportions over the past year. Substantial amounts of space in industry journals are devoted to issues such as sustainability, energy management, green b...

Author: Claudia Jurowski 

Year: 2008 

297 Think Tank XV Social Representations of Tourist Selfies: New Challen... file 2813 Jul 27, 2015

A number of recent incidents have focussed media attention on the phenomenon of tourist selfies, described their negative consequences for tourist destinations and identified a number of challenges for tourist site managers. This paper repor...

Author: John Pearce & Gianna Moscardo 

Year: 2015 

296 Think Tank XV Perceptions of local communities participation in rura... file 2830 Jul 27, 2015

In order to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs, rural communities should be able to participate actively in all aspects of tourism, including planning and management. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the local communit...

Author: Limpho Lekaota & Jarkko Saarined 

Year: 2015 

295 Think Tank XV Can we eat it? Exploring the cultural challenges in ma... file 2831 Jul 27, 2015

Can we eat it? How did you stop the waves? Is there water in there? Where is the switch to turn it off? Will it eat me? These are just some of the many questions asked by visitors to uShaka Sea World in Durban, South Africa. While South Afri...

Author: Judy Mann & Roy Ballantyne & Jan Packer 

Year: 2015 

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