Is there Demand for Sustainable Tourism? Study for the World Tourism Forum Lucerne 2011

This empirical study consists of two parts. The first goal of this study is to learn more about tourists‘ understanding of sustainable tourism. The empirical survey with 6,000 respondents in eight countries identifies the most relevant aspects of sustainable tourism from a tourists‘ perspective. Overall the perception is balanced over the different dimensions. Furthermore, five different types regarding tourists‘ understanding of sustainable tourism are identified in a cluster analysis and a potential market size of sustainable tourism of 22% of all tourists can be identified. A choice experiment with almost 5,000 Swiss respondents is conducted in the second part. It shows that tourists principally favour sustainable tourism products. Although there are clear preferences in favour of sustainable products, it can be shown that the respondents are only willing to pay a small premium for the inclusion of specific attributes in most cases.