What does a responsible tourist want? by Bl.EU Climate project research
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What does a responsible tourist want? by Bl.EU Climate project research
Are tourists looking for eco-friendly tourist destination and what are change-makers in Croatia offering them?
To get the answers, we’ve done a research last summer and asked the tourists and tourism service providers. Here is what we found out!
- Most tourists consider ecology to be an important topic in their everyday life as well as on vacation.
- Large majority claiming that they appreciate plastic-free and ecologically aware environment stating “clean” as a major factor in choosing the location.
- Most important factors when choosing a destination are cleanliness, environmental responsibility and the price. However, when it comes to decision making, economy has the upper hand and green tourism is, for most, still an added value and not a decision point.
- If presented with an eco-friendly accommodation or service choice, overwhelming majority of tourists are willing to pay additionally for the environmental option.
- The behaviour of tourists at home and on vacation (unfortunately) mostly relies on recycling however it is shifting towards the “refuse, reuse, reduce” syntagm with 60% of tourists not using plastic bags. When it comes to replacing plastic products, they would most readily abandon plastic bottles, plates and cutlery. The fact that tourists would be ready to abandon plastic bottles is important as it is the plastic item they use the most, according to the survey.
- Although ecology is not the most important factor in choosing the location of one’s vacation, tourists are ready to support, promote and recommend plastic-free policies.
In conclusion we can say that the plastic-free, zero-waste and eco-friendly tourism demand, based on values, behaviours and expectations of tourist is very likely to grow in Croatia.
Therefore, we’ve formulated several data-based recommendations:
- A platform for sharing information and supporting change-makers is crucial.
- The demand for alternative products need to be developed.
- It has to be a community effort, and local government and tourist boards are crucial.
The new era of tourist demand is knocking on the Croatian door. Opening that door and putting the house in order must be a joint effort of the civil sector, local government, tourist board, tourist service providers and change-makers. Thus, local governments partnering with organisations such as Terra Hub or local NGOs and civic initiatives like “Za Zlarin bez plastike” can be crucial in providing information, education and support needed for this next phase of combined tourist and environmental development. The research clearly shows that very few, early change-makers are providing eco-responsible tourist services and that immediate and strategic action is needed in order to scale that.
The whole research is available here.
The executive summary of the research in Croatian language is available here.
This research has been done in the summer of 2019 as a part of the EIT Climate-KIC project Bl.EU Climate – Climate innovation in Southern Waters. The research authors are Sven Marcelić, PhD, Senior researcher, University of Zadar; and Tamara Puhovski – Social Impact Analysis, Innovation and Recommendation by Impact House. We thank local communities and partners on the islands of Cres and Zlarin for participation!
