0Discussion Paper Series No.146

Ecotourist Behaviour as a Green Consumer
Masahiro Yabuta* and Noel Scott**
September/2010

Abstract

This paper discusses the definition of an eco-tourist based on their attitudes
towards environmental issues. A number of such definitions have been formulated
but usually from an empirical rather than a theoretical viewpoint. In this paper a
choice model of tourist destinations leads to an alternative definition of the ecotourist. It is shown that the tourists’ attitudes to paying for environmental
preservation expressed here in terms of the marginal willingness has a crucial rolein identifying an eco-tourist. The behaviour of tourists who demonstrate green
consistency is also investigated, leading to identification of additional
characteristics of eco-tourists. Based on these discussions, policy measures that
may be used to affect tourist behaviour are examined.

Keywords; eco-tourist, green consumer, green consistency, environmental-friend
marginal willingness to pay* Faculty of Economics, Chuo University & the University of Queensland** School of Tourism, the University of Queensland(The first author, a visitor of the University of Queensland, School of Tourism, Faculty of Business,
Economic and Law, really appreciates its hospitality over his stay. Initially, this paper was inspired by adiscussion with Mr. J.Ogawa, who was a graduate student at Chuo University.)

1Introduction
In this paper, we shall investigate the behaviour of green consumers, inparticular, focusing on consumption of tourism services. In general, green
consumers are defined as consumers who have a special concern about theenvironmental attributes of the goods and services that they purchase. Green
consumers for example prefer the products they purchase to be produced inenvironmentally-friendly ways. By analogy with this definition, eco-tourists, orgreen tourists, can be defined as those who have a special concern about theenvironmental attributes of the tourist destinations they visit. Eco-tourists choose atourism destination based on its environmental condition and the type of experiences
which they may expect there. Accordingly, factors such as nature-based tourism
attractions and the environmental credentials of each tourism service should be
important for them. In this regard, the following question might be posed. Is a
consumer who purchases an eco-car considered a green consumer? and by analogy,
is a tourist who participates in a nature-based tour an eco-tourist?
To address these questions, assume that the basic attributes of a car are
performance, quality and environment. Moreover, assume that there are two types ofcars in the market, called H and T, and there is no difference in either performanceor quality between them. The only difference is that car T is an eco-car while H isnot. If their prices, pT and pH, are the same, it is logical that consumers would prefer
car T rather than H because of a preference for a better environment whenever otherconditions are the same. In this case, can we say that all consumers who buy car T
are green consumers?
Unfortunately, in this situation we cannot confirm exactly who is a green
consumer and who is not. Let the marginal utility, or equivalently, the marginal
willingness to pay (MWTP) for environmental preservation by a car be u. Moreover,assume pT is greater than pH. Clearly, whether a consumer purchases car T instead ofcar H depends on their relative price level. If pT – pH < u, then all consumers would
choose car T. However, if pT – pH > u, consumers would choose car H. Because
MWTP varies from consumer to consumer, some differences in consumer behaviour

2would be expected. Let MWTP of consumer k be uk and assume ui<uj. If ui < pT – pH
< uj, then the consumer j will purchase car T but consumer i will buy car H. This isbecause, whereas pT is higher than pH, consumer j tends to appreciate theenvironmental value more than its cost. In this case can we say that the consumer j is
the green consumer? In this regard, the following points (1) to (6) are notable;(1) We implicitly assume that every consumer joins the car market. If there are someconsumers who never think about purchasing a car at any time, it is impossible
to recognize who amongst those non-purchasers is a green consumer withrespect to the car market.
(2) Complete information about each car's attributes should be communicated fromproducers to consumers, such that consumers can estimate their own MWTP forthe environment.
(3) The MWTP of each consumer varies. Even if all consumers received the same
information about the cars, their evaluations would be different from each other.
Income, education, social relationships or other factors may affect choice
behaviour as the green consumers1.
(4) All products and services should be considered from long-term perspectives.
Consuming products is a utility-generating process. In the case of a car,consumption lasts until it is scrapped or resold. If a green consumer buys an ecocar, their positive contribution to the environment will be long lasting. A longrun perspective may affect the current discounted value and MWTP of eachconsumer.
(5) We should assume both heterogeneity of producers and consumers with respect
to the environment. Various factors, such as production technology,
environmental management and company‟s targets, may improve theenvironmental attributes of products from day to day, but heterogeneity will1

Behavioural consistency is important in regard to environmental preservation (Mischel 1968;
Watanabe and Sato 1994). Consistency here includes both the temporal stability and cross-sectional
stability, which makes it possible to recognize that a consumer will always be a green consumer
whenever they purchase products. This would allow a consumer to be labelled a green consumer evenif we only know that they bought an eco-car. As Mischel (1968) showed however, little empiricalresearch supports such behavioural consistency. Practically, this means that we can only prove that a
consumer is a green consumer with respect to a specific product or service.

3

remain. Environmental concern, education and public opinion will not remove
heterogeneity among consumers. This means that the "greenness", both of
consumers and of producers, is a relative concept, which we can estimate interms of a percentage of the total consumers only.
(6) The market for cars still plays an important role both for producers andconsumers, through which they meet to set the market price.

Eco-tourists in tourism destinations
In this section we will apply the same argument discussed above to tourism. For
tourism it is more difficult to tell whether a visitor is an eco-tourist because visiting
a tourism destination involves consumption of a series of tourism services, including
attractions, accommodation and hotels. In addition a visitors‟ choice of destination
might be inconsistent with their environmental values. Clearly, each tourism productcan be investigated as to its purpose; choice of the eco-friendly hotels, for example,
allows us to identify eco-tourists, but only for the hotel services. In this regard, we
can investigate individually the choice of hotel or attractions visited, but in thispaper we shall assume that a tourism destination provides a "package" of tourism
services consumed by visitors. A package eco-tour, for example, would provide
environmentally friendly foods, accommodation and attractions.
As already mentioned, similar to the green car consumer, eco-tourists may be
defined as those who show a deep interest in the environment of the tourist
destinations they visit. Therefore, the choice model and all the points, from (1) to (6)listed above regarding green car consumers also apply to the case of eco-tourists. In
addition to them, some further points should be noted for the eco-tourists. Choice ofthe destination is made before visiting, in the same way as green consumers decideto purchase the eco-friendly goods before usage. However, for the eco-tourists, theconsummation of the tourism services extends over the stay at the tourism
destination. In the consumption process, tourists‟ attitudes towards environmentallyfriendly activities will be still different from tourist to tourist, meaning that theconsuming process is also important for the eco-tourists. Moreover, it should be4

noted that the consumption of tourism services includes educational and learning
experiences. The higher the preference for such experiences, the larger a tourist's
MWTP will be, whereas each tourist has a different MTWP for the same
experiences in a tourism site. Sometimes, an emotional experience during a trip maychange a person's life and attitudes to the environment. Because, in general, a choiceof a tourism destination is made before visiting, tourists must estimate the MWTP
based on the expected utility which they would gain there, not only from tourism
activity but also from their quality of experience.
To introduce a simple model, the following is assumed: there are two tourism
destinations but there are many tourists who choose and enjoy them. There is nodifference in performance and quality, except for the environment between two
destinations. For example, each tourism destination covers a specific natural area butthey are classified into two kinds: a clean (eco-) destination and a dirty (non eco-)
destination2. In a clean destination, considered an ecotourism destination, marketing
is consistent with environmental sustainability whenever tourism services are
discussed. From the demand perspective, tourists as consumers of tourism services
can be classified based on their eco-consciousness or eco-friendly attitudes. Ecotourists are those who carefully choose and consider the destinations, those whoknow their environmental influence on the destinations, and those who play positiverole in environmental preservation on their holidays. Motivations for suchenvironment-oriented behaviour are the innate personal reward due to preserving theenvironment, as well as perhaps social recognition from others in society. In contrast,
dirty tourists or non eco-tourists are those who have no environmental concerns,
who neglect tourism-related environmental issues, and who may sometimes
undertake destructive behaviour such as killing animals. In practice the disparity
between eco-tourists and dirty tourists might be not so clearly defined because eachtourist may exhibit a mix of behaviours.

2

Here the notation of „clean‟ or „dirty‟ is analogous to „clean industry‟ or „dirty industry‟.

5What happens when producers meet a mix of the consumer types mentioned
above? As far as tourism is concerned, the main question is how tourists can beconsidered eco-tourists when different types of tourists visit a tourism destination. A
number of prior papers have investigated the behaviour of eco-tourists, and how
ecotourism destinations affect tourists‟ behaviour and their environmental concern.
However, there has been no systematic examination of the consumer-producer
relationship and its outcome from an environmental perspective. A systematicconceptual framework including both consumers and producers is required thatallows us to identify eco-tourists. In this paper, we shall focus our attention on
tourist choice behaviour and its effects on tourism destinations.

A review of research on tourists as consumers
Before developing a model, a brief review of papers on tourists or consumers‟
behaviour with respect to environmental consideration is presented. This review
focuses on eco-tourists or green-tourists, including their definition, major issues,
analytical measures and conclusions. Unfortunately, as Dolnicar, et al. (2008) foundin a review of research papers about tourist environmental behaviour, there is little
consensus about who eco-tourists (or environment-friendly tourists) are. These
researchers suggested that empirical analysis is needed to examine the relationshipbetween eco-tourists and all tourists, in terms of their behaviour. The aim of thispaper is to address this suggestion from a theoretical perspective because the authors
consider the theoretical basis of existing research needs attention before further
empirical research is undertaken.
Swarbrooke and Horner (2007) discuss „the green tourist‟3 and make a numberof useful points as follows: firstly, there can be some different shades of „green‟
depending mainly on tourists‟ awareness, knowledge and attitude to environmental
issues. For example, (dark) green tourists are those who reject or boycott tourism
services which are not eco-friendly and those who make sacrifices because of views
3

Though the name they used is different from ours and „eco-tourist‟ itself is used in a limited area,
hereafter only „eco-tourist‟ is used as a simple standardized notation.

6and interests in environmental issues. Secondly, issues that would concern a green
tourist such as conservation of wildlife, pollution, environmentally destructive
development and so on are explained in detail at the tourism destinations. If green
tourists are aware of these issues, how do they behave? It is would be expected thatthey will give up their choice to visit a destination where there are environmental
problems. In this case, tourists‟ behaviour should be determined not only by theirattitude towards the environmental issues in daily life but also by information theyreceive about the environmental situation of different tourist destinations.
Thirdly, motivations that influence green tourists include not only self-interest but
also altruism. Their belief in the need of environmental preservation can beconsidered as impure altruism, in that their actions have a benefit to themselves aswell. In the framework of environmental economics, altruistic behaviour has alreadybeen incorporated in theories to explain people‟s donations to charity or highwillingness-to-pay as id found in the works of Cornes and Sandler (1994), Andreoni(1989), and Kotcen (2005, 2007). Fourthly, determinants of green behaviour include
external factors, such as information or advice from the tourism companies andgovernment-led green that affect tourists‟ preference and choice behaviour. In thisregard, the industry and tourists themselves may be positive agents for a change
toward green tourism.
Accordingly, a definition of eco-tourists in terms of their behaviour requires
inclusion of the behaviours of both the tourist and tourism destination provider. In amarket framework, the tourist as a consumer interacts with the tourism destination
as a producer. Through the market mechanism and complimentary policy to tackle
market failures, tourists should influence tourism destinations decisions and viceversa. This interdependency is the key to identifying who is an eco-tourist. This
interdependency is implicit in recent discussion of the potential for changing tourists‟behaviour from passive to active contributors for environmental preservation(Ballantyne, Packer and Hughes 2009), and to encourage eco-friendly behaviour(Orams 1995).

7Tourists affects tourism producers‟ behaviour by their choice of tourism
services; for example, in one study three in four tourists considered themselves to beenvironmentally friendly and intended to stay in a hotel with an environmental
strategy (Watkins 1994; Gustin and Weaver 1996)4. Moreover, tourists‟ support forenergy saving technology can increase the overall eco-efficiency of destinations(Kelly et al. 2007). According to Dalton, Lockington and Baldock (2008), almost
half of tourists have a desire for environmentally friendly hotels with renewableenergy supply and are willing to pay extra, between 1% and 5% for a renewableenergy supply. Tourists with a stronger orientation towards nature also have morepositive views of the environmentally responsible practices of tourist businesses
than those not nature-oriented (Andereck 2009).
Effective coordination of tourist support and management practices by tourism
destinations can be helpful in achieving sustainable outcomes (Ballantyne andPacker 2005; Ballantyne, Packer and Hughes 2009). Whereas consumer goods may
have an instruction book allowing learning about the safe use of the product, tourism
services, and particularly those in a nature-based destination, provide interpretationin order to maximize consumer‟s satisfaction. This interpretive material may
encourage tourists to move from a passive to an active role in preserving the naturalenvironment. As mentioned before, behaviour related to preserving the naturalenvironmental can be considered altruism. Managers can provide enjoyable
experiences as well as opportunities for learning, which may change visitor's
attitudes about environmental preservation (Orams 1995; Lim and McAleer 2005).
However, these experiences are not found in every natural tourism destination.
For example, wildlife tourists in general demonstrate more eco-consciousness andconcern for conservation issues than other tourists. Moreover, it is necessary fortourism destinations to address the tourists‟ need of information, because wildlife
tourists tend to want practical information along with a conservation message
4

Gustin and Weaver (1996) have also found that some tourists show negative attitude to some
services such as changing towels and low flow showers. This implies that except for overall effects,
the marginal private benefit of each service may exceed the social marginal cost depending on its
characteristics.

8(Ballantyne, Packer and Hughes 2009). Recently, volunteer ecotourism, whereby
tourists do volunteer work conserving the natural environment, has been developedby some conservation/tourism agencies. According to Wearing (2003) and Cousins(2007), „hard‟ eco-tourists are interested in direct interactive conservation
experiences during their holidays. In conservation tourism, a business provides
conservation holiday packages and the tourists enjoy their volunteer activities5. Thusa demand for conservation activities creates its own supply and, on the other hand, a
supply of conservation tourism packages may increase demand.
A procedure of clustering the tourists‟ behaviour has been applied that splits
tourists into three groups (Dolnicar and Leisch 2008). Using scores measuring pastenvironmental behaviour at a destination, respondents are classified into those withsmall, and medium and large environmental footprints. Their finding was that
tourism destinations could attract environmental friendly tourists using a selective
marketing approach6.

A basic model
Assume that there are two tourism destinations (i = 1,2); tourism destination 1 is"clean" in a sense that it provides eco-friendly tourism services, while destination 2
is dirty because there is no consideration of environment. In each, tourism services
are produced by using resources; for simplicity, a single resource and a compound
tourism service are assumed. Common services at each tourism destination, such asaccommodation, catering and tour guides, can be provided in both destinations byusing same technology, so that marginal cost is the same in both destinations and is
5

Cousins (2007) has investigated the 21 UK-based conservation tourism providers and shown that 6
in 21 are non-profit organisations; 11 are companies and the other are charities or charity andcompany based. However, their customers are mainly from university related activities and only 6 in
21 organisations have a general public base. The type of experience that conservation tourism offers
is different from organisation to organisation, including building, business, community development,
conservation and so on. The top three destinations are Africa, Asia and Central Africa and the top
three biome types are Tropical rainforest, Savannah and Marine, respectively.
6
Dolnicar (2004) analysed an Austrian case. Tourists were classified into two groups; sustainable
tourists and non-sustainable tourists. A sustainable tourist is a respondent who strongly agreed withthe statement that on holiday the efforts to maintain unspoiled surroundings play a major role for you.
It was found that around 70% of tourists were sustainable tourists and they could offer a sound basis
for tourism business creation.

9given by c. The difference in „cleanness‟ between both destinations depends on themarginal costs that each pays for environmental preservation 7 . The marginalenvironmental cost paid at each destination is assumed to be ei ( e1  e2  0 )8. Thenthe profit for each tourism destination (  i ) can be given by(1) 1  x( p1  (1  s)(c  e1 ))(2)  2  (1  x)( p2  (1  s)(c  e2 ))where pi is price of tourism service provided at each destination9. In (1) and (2), thetotal demand for tourism is assumed to be unity, so that x shows the share of total
demand for tourism service at tourism destination 1. s show the environmental
subsidy.

Tourists’ behaviour
Each consumer enjoys a common level of utility (u) at either tourism destination
because there is no difference in tourism services except for the environment
between two destinations. However, as far as environmental preservation isconcerned, consumers are assumed to have different preferences so that their choiceof destination gives them different outcomes. Here the tourists‟ evaluation ofenvironmental preservation at each tourism destination is simply given by(3) Wi   ei .
In (3), Wi is tourists‟ marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for environmental
preservation, and  is a consumer‟s actual evaluation on ei and assumed to beuniform distribution bounded in [ , ] . Then the average is   (   ) / 2 and thevariance is   (   ) 2 / 12 .

7This type of choice model of consumers was developed by Bansal (2008) and Ericksson (2004),
both of which analysed a choice behaviour of the green energy. Fairchild (2008) also used a similar
model whereas his major concern is the investment behaviour of the firms to discriminate theirenvironmental cleanness.
8
It is assumed that each ei also determines the situation of environmental preservation at each site.
Therefore, more expenditure for environmental costs means better preservation of tourism resources.
This is given by a functional form: Ei=Ei(ei),E‟i>0 but, for simplicity, assume Ei=ei.
9
As for the price level, assume that price at a clean site is more expensive than that at dirty site.
Actually, nobody choose dirty site when price at dirty site is higher than at clean site because theyloose utility from environmental preservation. This means that somebody can choose the dirty sitewhen p1  p2 is assured.

10

In this regard, the followings may be observed. In real world, consumer
behaviour, especially related to the environmental is too complicated to estimate.
Even if a tourist knows exactly how much the tourism destination spends onenvironmental preservation and how well the environment of the tourism destination
is preserved by this expenditure, different tourist do not always give the same
estimate for the value of this preservation. Consumers however can give similarevaluations of the environmental preservation when more accurate information
about environmental preservation is given for each tourism destination. Recently
tourism destinations have been able to receive environmental certification, using
schemes such as that by Ecotourism Australia.
As far as these eco-certificates or eco-labels are credible and well advertised,
tourists can give a fair and accurate judgement on the evaluation of environmental
preservation, with the result that the variance of evaluations (  ) becomes smaller
and the average of evaluations (  ) will be close to unity. Tourists‟ usual ecofriendly stance may significantly affect  and  . It may be expected that the moreenvironmentally friendly a person is regarding energy-savings or waste-abatement indaily life, the greater their MWTP will be. It is hard to confirm, however, whether
their eco-friendly behaviour will decrease the variance of MWTP, as recognition of
the need for environmental preservation may be affected by the amount ofenvironmental information people receive. Further, environmental education, willaffect MWTP differently. Moreover, there is an income effect on MWTP. Therefore,
as far as the effect of environmentally friendly behavior on the variance of MWTP isconcerned, it can be negative or positive depending on various factors, including
environmental education.

Tourists’ choice of the destination
Tourists choose where to go. In the model discussed here, tourists may only
choose either destination 1 (clean) or destination 2 (dirty). From a spatial
perspective, equilibrium can be attained when there is no difference in marginalutility between the two tourism destinations. This condition is given by

11(4) u  p1  e1   (e1  e2 )  u  p2  e2
where  is the marginal utility of social-related evaluation, which gives tourists whochoose destination 1 a sense of satisfaction via direct returns and/or social
recognition for their contribution to preserving the natural environment. In (4), it isassumed that the overall effect of the altruistic behaviour of each individual should
be reflected by a large difference in preservation between both tourism destinations.
From (4) we may derive (5).
(5)  * 

p1  p2   (e1  e2 )e1  e2

In (5), tourists with   ( *, ] will choose destination 1 but tourists with  [ , *) will
choose destination 2 because they can get more utility in doing so. Hence the shareof demand for tourist destination 1 (the clean destination) can be given by (6).
(6) x   *.
 

Bertrand-Nash equilibrium
In this model, each tourism destination has a strategic variable; the price of
tourism services. By controlling the price, each tourism destination can increase its
visitors. The strategy employed here is a type of Bertrand-Nash competition. The
reason to employ the Bertrand-Nash competition is because tourism services havedifficulty in controlling their production volume. Moreover, tourism destinations
must be price competitive because tourists choose them by considering their value asshown by (4). From (1), (2) and (6), the reaction functions are given by(7-1) p1 

p2  (   )(e1  e2 )  (1  s )(c  e1 )2(7-2) p2 

p1  (   )(e1  e2 )  (1  s)(c  e2 ).
2Then the difference in prices between both tourism destinations becomes(8) p1 *  p2 * (    1  s  2  )(e1  e2 )
.
3

12

Taking (5),(6) and (8) together leads to(9) x* 2    1  s  3(   )A condition that the services are provided at the destination 1 is x* (0,1] and this isgiven by(10)

   / 2  (1  s   ) / 2

for 0    1  s    2  (1  s   )for 1  s    .

In this regard, the followings can be derived on the assumption of    .
Only the dirty destination is chosenwhen    / 2  (1  s   ) / 2 for 0    1  s  (11) Only clean destination is chosenwhen   2  (1  s   )for 1  s    Conditions (10) and (11) shows that both tourism destinations may be chosen by
tourists when  is large enough to compare with  . If tourists can estimate their
MWTP via rigorous information about environmental preservation costs, theaverage of MWTP should approach unity. Then it is reasonable to assume that  1   without loss of generality. In this case, services can be provided at bothtourism destinations. This shall apply hereinafter.
Total differentiation with respect to (9) yields(12) dx*  1 s 1 s1d d ds .102
23(   )3(   )3(   )In addition to (12), the following formulas are useful for  and  .

1(   )(d  d )(13) d  (d  d  ), d 
2
6As mentioned before, tourists‟ MWTP for environmental preservation can beaffected by their degree of environmental concern as well as their information about
tourism destinations where the environment is preserved. From (12) and (13), therelationship between d and d is given in figure 1.
It is clear that  has the same effect as s as shown in (9). This means discussions about s can beapplied to  .
10

13
It might be usual to name those who choose the clean destination „eco-tourists‟;
however such eco-tourists may not always have high environmental concern before
deciding where to visit. This can be easily shown as those who once chose the clean
destination could change their choice due to the others‟ changes in preferences (seeFigure 1). When the average or the variance of tourists‟ MWTP changes, a tourist‟s
choice may change even if their own MWTP did not change. For example, lettourists‟ behaviour as a whole change towards a lower variance and a lower averageof MWTP. This is shown as point A in Figure 1 where d  0, d  0 and dx*<0. In
this case, it is possible for some tourists who once visited the clean destination tochange their destination to the dirty destination even though they do not change their
MWTP.
It should also be noted that a gradient of dx*  0 in (12) depends on  and ds.
The gradient of dx*  0 is less than  45 if   1, whereas it is greater than  45 if  1 . Figure 1 shows the latter case. When ds>0, meaning that there is anincrement of environmental subsidy, the line of dx*  0 will shift downward asshown in Figure 1 ( dx*  0 (ds  0) . In this regard, an important point is how anenvironmental subsidy affects the clean tourism destination.

FIGURE 1 about here

It is clear from (12) that an increase in (marginal) environmental subsidy leads toan increase in service production at the clean tourism destination (or to a decrease at
dirty tourism destination). The reason why this occurs is understandable from (8).
An increase in the environmental subsidy causes price increases in both destinations,but it affects the service price at clean destinations more, because the marginalenvironmental cost at the clean destination is greater than that at the dirty destination.
As a result, it becomes comparatively cheaper for tourists to choose the services
provided at the clean destination. For example, decreases in  and  shown at point
B in Figure 1 can lead to a decline of service demand for the clean destination unlessthe environmental subsidy is increased. However, an increase in the environmental

14subsidy can completely alter the situation. A sufficient increase in the environmental
subsidy, as shown in Figure 1, can increase the service production at the clean
destination because the clean destination derives price benefits more than those at
the dirty destination.

Discussion
In this section, two additional issues concerning tourists‟ decision behaviour of
their destinations are discussed; the definition of „eco-tourists‟, and policy
instruments and their effect on the destination-choice behaviour of tourists.
There are at least two definitions of „eco-tourist‟. One insists that eco-tourists
should be those who have 'high' eco-consciousness and always exhibit eco-friendly
behaviour. For this definition, the life-style of eco-tourists must be considered.
When these tourists choose their destinations, however, they need to know exactly
which destination is „clean‟. As mentioned before, a lack of sufficient information
about the environmental preservation of destinations can mislead eco-tourists into
visiting „dirty‟ destinations. Therefore, the details of the tourism destinations
regarding whether they are „clean‟ or „dirty‟ are important. Some eco-tourists may
be found in the „dirty‟ destination. In the model analysis developed above, tourists‟
MWTP for preservation are assumed to be uniformly distributed and bounded by[ , ] . If the income effect on destination evaluation is negligible, eco-tourists are

tourists whose MWTP are greater than a certain level of  . Unfortunately, it is hard
to show a priori which  divides eco-tourists from others. Meaningful values of 
are the mean (    ) or unity (   1 ). Then, either (   ) /(   ) 100% of
tourists or (  1) /(   )  100% of tourists are classified as the eco-tourists(hereafter referred as Def. 1 and Def.2, respectively)11. Another definition of ecotourists is those who actually choose the clean destinations rather than dirty (Def. 3),

11

According to Dolnicar et al. (2008), a third of tourists were classified as „Small Environmental
Foot Print Tourists‟. If their definition of the tourist who is Small Environmental Foot Print can beconsidered an „eco-tourist‟, then, unlike Def.1, eco-tourists always account for 33% of all tourists.
See table 1.

15
and these comprise (2    1  s   ) / 3(   )  100% of tourists. In this case,information on whether a tourism destination is clean or dirty is required.
It is difficult to frame a definition of an eco-tourist that is both comprehensive
and accurate. Is there a synthesis of these definitions? To answer this problem,
definitions of eco-tourists are compared below and then investigated as todifferences. The difference in numbers of eco-tourists among definitions is given by(14) Def.1 - Def.3 

1  s    (   ) / 2
1 s    or .
3(   )3(   )Or,(15) Def.2 - Def.3 2[(   ) / 2  1  ( s   ) / 2]2(   1  ( s   ) / 2)or .
3(   )3(   )Both (14) and (15) shows that there is no difference in definitions as far as s = 0 and  1 , when tourists can accurately evaluate the environmental preservation of the
tourism destinations. However, as far as s = 0 and   0 , if tourists on average
underestimate the environmental preservation (i.e.   1 ), then the number of ecotourists becomes Def.1>Def.3>Def.2. Let   1.2 and   0.5 , then 50%, 29% or
43% of tourists are eco-tourists using Def.1, Def.2 or Def.3 respectively. On thecontrary, in case of overestimation (   1 ), then Def.1<Def.3<Def.2. Let   1.2
and   0.9 , then 50%, 67% or 56% of tourists are eco-tourists by Def.1, Def.2 andDef. 3 respectively. Some numerical examples are shown in Table 1. In this regard,
it is clear that the environmental subsidy affects eco-tourist numbers by Def. 3. As
shown in Table 1, an increase in s leads to an increase in the number of eco-tourists
because it confers a price-advantage to the clean tourism destination as comparedwith the dirty destination.

TABLE 1 about here

As shown above, there is uncertainty in eco-tourists numbers due to thedifferent definitions. How can the difference between Def.2 and Def.3 beinterpreted? The following gives a simple explanation. Assume   1.2 and   0.5 ,16

and there are one hundred tourists. Then, using Def. 2, 14 tourists (43 - 29) are not
eco-tourists because they have a lower MWTP than unity. However, they may beclassified as eco-tourists by Def. 3 because they have actually chosen the clean
tourism destination. A possible explanation of this difference is that 14 of 43 tourists
are not always environmentally concerned in their daily life but happen to choose aclean tourism destination. On the other hand, in the case of   1.2 and   0.9 , then
11 of one hundred tourists chose the dirty tourism destination and actually are ecotourists due to their eco-friendly behaviour. The reason why they chose a dirty
destination might be a lack of adequate information on the „cleanliness‟ of the
tourism destinations. In this case, 11 tourists should have chosen a clean tourism
destination and must regret their decision after their visit to the dirty tourism
destination.
Each individual‟s (impure) altruistic behaviour could be understood by looking
at the effect of s in Table 1 because  , the marginal evaluation of social-related
actions, has the same effects as s. Therefore, the larger altruistic behaviour is, themore tourists can be classified as eco-tourists.
From an empirical research perspective, eco-tourists, using Def.1 or Def.2
may be recognized using surveys containing questions about their knowledge andtheir behaviour regarding environmental preservation in daily life. Such a survey
could seek to estimate directly the tourists‟ MWTP for environmental preservation,using a contingent valuation method (CVM) or conjoint analysis. On the other hand,in case of Def.3, a clustering method could be applied to a number of tourism
destinations, to discriminate clean tourism destinations from dirty. In this regard, thesurvey must include questions related to the knowledge of environmental
preservation at each tourism destination, impressions of destinations and the gap
between actual travel and expectations in order to estimate  . In particular,
questions about how tourists could be responsible for their activities in tourism
destinations may be useful. Then, statistical data concerning the number of tourists
at each tourism destination could be used to estimate the share of tourists either forthe clean or the dirty destinations. Moreover, questions, about destinations where

17

tourists have decided to go before, frequency, main concerns, things learnt by
experience and intention to the next visit, may also be asked.
In this model analysis, only an environmental subsidy on the total marginal cost
(marginal cost plus marginal environmental cost) is considered. In reality, there arevarious public policy tools that may encourage environmental preservation at a
tourism destination. They include, for example, an environmental tax, regulations bygovernment, voluntary action, and cooperative agreements among local stakeholders.
In addition, mechanisms that increase the social status of a individual choosing aenvironmental destination can be incorporated as a policy tools. For example, beinga member of an organization that supports a specific natural resource may arousefeelings of pride in the individual.
Accordingly, many factors influence environmental preservation of tourisms
destinations. To better understand these factors, a survey including questions about
tourists‟ knowledge of these policy measures, along with variables increasing policy
implementation for each tourism destination may be useful.

An extended model with ‘green consistency’
In the basic model discussed above, uniformity in the distribution of tourists
with respect to their MWTP is assumed. In this regard, we have shown that the
average and variance of the distribution plays an important role, and that they areaffected by policy measures that increase the number of eco-tourists. Therefore, thetype of probability distribution employed is a decisive factor affecting the results ofthis paper. It is clear that the consistency in tourist behaviour with respect toenvironment is a fundamental assumption of all models. However, it is likely thatsome tourists will be consistent in their behaviour towards preserving theenvironment. Thus, some tourists behave in the eco-friendly manner without any
exceptions. If we introduce heterogeneity among tourists, and assume that sometourists are consistent in their choice behaviour but the others are not, the shape ofthe distribution for these two groups of tourists may have two peaks, not a single
peak like in a Gaussian distribution (a uniform distribution has no peak). The second

18

point concerns the factors which affect the preference behaviour of eco-tourists. As
is shown in equation (4), if the consumers choose a clean destination instead of adirty destination, they will gain not only the utility from a better environment (thethird term of the L.H.S. in equation 4) but also from socially related evaluation. In
addition to these factors, other attributes of each consumer, such as income andeducation and so on, should affect the choice of the destinations.
Assume that  % of consumers in the market are regarded as having crosssituational consistency with respect to the environment. These consumers will
always assign top priority to eco-friendly products and choose them. In the model
framework, this means that the share of demand for destination 1 (clean destination)
becomes x   , and the share for destination 2 (dirty) is 1  x   . Therefore, x in (1)and 1-x in (2) must be replaced by x   and 1  x   , respectively. Whereas the
proportion of such tourists in society who are consistently green might be low, their
MWTP should be large, the average being higher but the variance being lower incomparison to other tourists. On the other hand, those who behave always in aninconsistent manner toward the environmental have relatively small MWTP, and theaverage of their MWTP should be smaller but their variance would be larger incomparison to tourists with consistency.
Supposing the probability distribution of each type of tourists is uniform, weshall distinguish between these two types of tourists.
C
C
C
C
C
(4-1) u  p1   e1   (e1  e2 )    u  p2   e2 ,     C(4-2) u  p1   e1   (e1  e2 )    u  p2   e2 ,      .
In (4-1) and (4-2),  or  is a factor that discriminates eco-tourists with greenCconsistency from other general tourists without such consistency. Because an
assessment of the environmental situation would be larger for eco-tourists thanothers, we assume that  is larger than  . As to the average and the variance ofC

MWTP, we have:CC(16)   [   ] / 2   C  [   ] / 2 ,   [   ]2 / 12   C  [   ]2 / 12 .
C

In this regard, (5) for the tourists without consistency becomesC19(5-1)  * 

p1  p2   (e1  e2 )  .
e1  e2Hence, the reaction functions of each tourism destination becomes:(7-1-1) p1 

p2  [     (   )](e1  e2 )  (1  s)(c  e1 )  
2(7-2-1) p2 

p1  [     (   )](e1  e2 )  (1  s)(c  e2 )  .
2Then the difference in prices between two tourism destinations becomes:(8-1) p1 *  p2 * [    1  s  2   2 (   )](e1  e2 )  2.
3

Taking (5-1), (6) and (8-1) together, the demand for tourism service at destination 1
can be given by:(9-1) x * * 

2    1  s     (   )   /(e1  e2 ).
3(   )Because  % of tourism services are consumed by the tourists who behave
consistently with respect to the environment, only:(9-2) x* 

2    1  s    2 (   )   /(e1  e2 ),3(   )in x** would be consumed by the tourists who behave inconsistently with respect tothe environment. (9-2) means that x * /(1  ) % of those, who usually behave
inconsistently with regard to environmental preservation, have actually chosen aclean destination. However, it does not mean that they should be classified as theeco-tourists just because they have chosen the clean destination by chance. Instead,an empirical investigation of who is an eco-tourist is needed just as discussed in theformer section.
As to the policy measures, we shall focus our attention on the parameters,  and . One possible policy, though it might be hard to execute, is to increase thenumber of consumers who always behave in an environmentally friendly manner.
Measures to increase these parameters include environmental education or otheractivities, which would contribute to increase the proportion of those people with

20

green consistency. In order for consumers to behave eco-friendly, adequate
information is required. The more information consumers receive about eco-friendly
consumption, the more green they will behave. During their daily activities, people
experience and learn through communication. In schools, businesses, governments
and local communities or web-sites, people may share information about
environmental issues. Ecotourism or sustainable tourism may have such an
educational effect on consumers. When visitors experience a beautiful naturalenvironment, or see people there contributing to environmental preservation, theirenvironmental commitment may increase. This means that it is important for those
who have never visited such eco-tourism sites to have a chance to visit. In thisregard, policy measures for increasing consumers' green consistency may include
promoting environmental communication, environmental education and providing
opportunities for experiencing a clean environment.
In this regard, another issue is a divergence between consumer‟s recognition, or
knowledge, and their behaviour. In an economics framework, it is assumed thatevery consumer can choose goods and services so as to maximize his/her benefits.
However, this does not mean that he/she always chooses eco-friendly ones. Even if
they know that “A” is good but “B” is bad for the environment, they may choose“B”. This is because their evaluation of, or MWTP for, goods and services is low
enough to offset the difference in prices. If this occurs due to a lack of sufficient
information about “A” and they happen to choose “B”, policy measures such asenvironmental communication may become important. However, if the choice ismade in full knowledge about "A" and "B", then some other policy measures areneeded to fill the gap between eco-consciousness and eco-behaviour. If we
implement policies that address the decision process, considering that the conscious
mind determines behaviour, we may encourage green consistent behaviour.

21

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Figure 1. Effects of policy measures to change the average or variance of MWTPdd  0d  0d  0dBdx*  0A

dx*  0(ds  0)d  0d  0 d  0

dx*  0dx*  0( ds  0)

Table 1. Eco-tourists by definitions (   1.2 )
minθ

μ

σ

Def.1

Def.2

0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90

0.70
0.75
0.80
0.85
0.90
0.95
1.00
1.05

0.08
0.07
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.01

0.50
0.50
0.50
0.50
0.50
0.50
0.50
0.50

0.20
0.22
0.25
0.29
0.33
0.40
0.50
0.67

s=0
0.40
0.41
0.42
0.43
0.44
0.47
0.50
0.56

Def.3(maxθ=1.2)
s=0.1
s=0.4
0.43
0.53
0.44
0.56
0.46
0.58
0.48
0.62
0.50
0.67
0.53
0.73
0.58
0.83
0.67
1.00

*Numbers in each rank for Def.i show the share of eco-tourists amongst total tourists.