The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Health and Human Development THE ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES, TRAVEL MOTIVATIONS AND EXPERIENCE EVALUATIONS OF TOURISTS IN CHINA A Thesis in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management by Mingyuan Chen © 2015 Mingyuan Chen Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science December 2015 The thesis of Mingyuan Chen was reviewed and approved* by the following: Deborah L. Kerstetter Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management and Professor-in- Charge of Graduate Studies Thesis Adviser Carter A. Hunt Assistant Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management Andrew J. Mowen Associate Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii ABSTRACT Researchers have argued that tourists who visit ecotourism destinations differ from tourists who visit non-ecotourism destinations in multiple ways, including their environmental attitudes, travel motivations, and evaluations of the destination. However, few have conducted studies with these two groups of tourists simultaneously. Thus, the purpose of this study was to contrast the environmental attitudes, travel motivations and evaluations of tourists visiting one ecotourism destination—Cangshanerhai Natural Reserve (CNR) in Dali, China—with those of tourists visiting one of three non-ecotourism destinations in China. An on-site survey and follow-up interviews were used to address the study purpose. The results revealed that tourists visiting ecotourism destinations are fairly similar to tourists visiting non- ecotourism destinations in terms of their environmental attitudes and ecotourism travel motivations. Tourists visiting ecotourism destinations do not universally possess favorable environmental attitudes and their travel motivations are diverse, including both ecotourism travel motivations and non-ecotourism travel motivations. In addition, they have favorable and unfavorable evaluations of the ecotourism destination. Local ecotourism operators should respond to these results by making more of an effort to protect the environment and culture associated with their destination, provide more environmental education to enhance tourists’ environmental attitudes, and provide a number of different ecotourism programs to arouse tourists’ ecotourism travel motivations. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................ VI LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................. VIII CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ......................... 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 1 Ecotourism ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Ecotourists....................................................................................................................................... 3 Ecotourism and ecotourists in China ............................................................................................. 4 STUDY PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS.................................................................................... 4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH ...................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER TWO. LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................. 7 ECOTOURISM ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Debate related to ecotourism .......................................................................................................... 9 Ecotourism assessment ................................................................................................................. 10 ECOTOURISTS ................................................................................................................................... 13 TOURISTS’ ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AS THEY RELATE TO ECOTOURISM ............................. 17 TOURISTS’ TRAVEL MOTIVATION AS IT RELATES TO ECOTOURISM .............................................. 21 Travel motivations......................................................................................................................... 21 Ecotourism travel motivations ...................................................................................................... 22 CHAPTER THREE. METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................... 27 DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY SITES .................................................................................................. 27 The focal study site: CNR, Dali, China ........................................................................................ 27 The three comparison sites ........................................................................................................... 30 RESEARCH DESIGN: A MIXED-METHOD APPROACH ...................................................................... 34 The survey ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Survey design ........................................................................................................................................... 35 Survey data collection ............................................................................................................................. 38 Statistical analysis of survey data ........................................................................................................... 38 The interview ................................................................................................................................. 39 Interview design ....................................................................................................................................... 39 Interview data collection ......................................................................................................................... 40 Textual analysis of the interview data.................................................................................................... 40 iv CHAPTER FOUR. RESULTS ....................................................................................................... 41 QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH RESULTS ............................................................................................... 41 Participants’ profile ...................................................................................................................... 41 Environmental attitudes, ecotourism travel motivations and evaluation of the destination visited ....................................................................................................................................................... 43 A multidimensional view of environmental attitude and ecotourism travel motivations ............ 47 ANOVAs and Post-hoc tests with four groups of tourists............................................................ 50 Evaluation of ecotourism characteristics ................................................................................................... 53 INTERVIEW ANALYSIS RESULTS ....................................................................................................... 54 Interviewees’ profile ..................................................................................................................... 54 Tourists’ environmental attitude .................................................................................................. 54 Tourists’ travel motivations .......................................................................................................... 58 Tourists’ evaluation ...................................................................................................................... 68 CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ............................................................... 73 THE RESULTS .................................................................................................................................... 73 CONCEPTUAL IMPLICATIONS............................................................................................................ 83 MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS ........................................................................................................... 84 LIMITATIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 85 FUTURE RESEARCH ............................................................................................................................ 85 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 88 APPENDIX. SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE AND SOURCES ...................................................... 99 PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE ..............................................................................................