Influences on coastal tourism demand and substitution behaviors from climate change impacts and hazard recovery responses

Abstract

Climate change impacts can negatively affect tourism demand and, subsequently, local economies by disrupting access and altering physical conditions, including those from adaptation and recovery efforts. Research is needed that helps destinations become more climate ready, including studies of decision factors that influence trip-taking behaviors. This paper presents findings from a discrete choice experiment to determine how physical and economic changes could affect visitation behaviors to a vulnerable coastal destination, the Outer Banks region of North Carolina, USA. We embedded our experiment within an on-site visitor survey to reveal thresholds of negative changes to coastal attributes that tourists are willing to tolerate, and also examined tourists’ willingness to substitute their future trips to the region. Transportation-related changes had the highest relative importance among the four selected attributes. The likelihood of three types of spatial substitution, spurred by not being able to access the destination, were consistently related to residency but less consistently related to place meanings, visitation history, and other demographic variables. Study results can inform climate change planning within coastal zones to minimize negative impacts to tourism demand, such as the need to develop creative revenue streams to maintain resilience in communities that rely on occupancy taxes.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• coastal impacts
• discrete choice experiment
• resilience
• substitution behaviours
• tourism constraints

Disclosure statement

There are no potential conflicts of interest to report.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the College of Natural Resources at NC State University’s Building Interdisciplinary Strengths initiative (project title: ‘Socio-ecological solutions to the salinization of the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula: An interdisciplinary assessment of land and water resources and community climate readiness’).

Notes on contributors

Erin Seekamp

Erin Seekamp is an associate professor and tourism extension specialist in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at NC State University. Her research focuses on partnerships, decision-making, and capacity building in relation to climate adaptation planning, community-based conservation, and conservation behaviors. She is a 2019 Research Fellow of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).

Matthew Jurjonas

Matthew Jurjonas is currently a Fulbright-Garcia Robles US Scholar at the Institute of Social Investigations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His research focuses on climate justice implications of natural resource management policy in the United States and Mexico. He contributed to this project and paper during his doctoral studies in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at NC State University.

Karly Bitsura-Meszaros

Karly Bitsura-Meszaros is a former research assistant in and graduate student of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at NC State University. Her research interests are in coastal climate adaptation planning in tourism-dependent communities in which she employs cutting-edge technologies, such as ocular tracking.