Integrating multiple perspectives into an ecotourism marketing strategy in a Marine National Park

ABSTRACT

Integrating experiential and institutional perspectives on ecotourism programs is currently a hot topic in the management of sustainable marine tourism. We establish a preference model of ecotourism management with multiple attributes to evaluate tourist preferences and the welfare values under various marine ecotourism scenarios in a marine national park. The empirical results show that tourists would prefer to alter the status quo by increasing the number of park-related experiential activities, improving the quality of the interpretation, and establishing local funds in the community ecosystem. Our results will help park managers create a sustainable marine policy that considers tourists’ preferences.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based ecotourism
• choice experiment
• market segmentation
• management strategy
• Marine National Park
• tourist’s preference

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [MOST 108-2410-H-259-042, 108-2410-H-507-001–SSS, and 108-2635-H-507-001].