242
A. Terzi´ c and D. Demirovi´ c Bajrami
an urging need to promote sustainable development (Butcher 2008). Furthermore,
the media attention and popularity of environmentally sensitive issues and sustainability are reaching more and more tourists. It is evident that greater awareness
and environmentally favourable attitudes positively affected the intentions for future
ecotourism practices and choices of travel destinations (Lam and Hsu 2006; Han
et al. 2010). Increased levels of environmental education and mass media affected
tourists’ tendencies to adopt environmentally friendly behaviour (Sharpley 2006).
Also, Hultman et al. (2015 p. 2) declared that, in an environmentalism context, ‘the
value-beliefs-norm theory suggests that values indirectly form pro-environmental
behaviour by spurring favourable environmental beliefs and attitudes toward ecotourism attractions’, and empirically confirmed that these values exert a direct
effective influence on consumer behaviour.
Though many academics explored various topics related to typologies and ecotourism, few have investigated representative samples for countries as a whole. This
study provides a theoretical retrospective on the issues of tourist motivation and ecotourism, both being an open debate within academic society since the 1970s, along
with the determination of eco-tourist profiles and specific tourism market niches
within the European region.
This study aims to examine if human values sets, indicating basic motivational
aspects that are shared by the European population in general, could be used for the
creation of a specific market segmentation model, based on previous theoretical and
empirical findings. The study has a two-folded objective:
1. To create a psychological profile of soft and hard eco-tourists, as an attempt
to understand the set of beliefs that manifest into eco-tourism consumer value
systems.
2. To indicate the socio-demographic characteristics and extensiveness of the
potential demand markets.
2 Ecotourism as Sustainable Form of Tourism
Ecotourism is, essentially, a form of nature-based tourism, emphasizing the learning
process as a result of interaction between eco-tourists and the natural environment,
and therefore, it proclaims itself to be the most sustainable form of tourism. According
to Weaver (2001, p. 105) ‘ecotourism is a form of nature-based tourism that strives
to be ecologically, socio-culturally and economically sustainable while providing
opportunities for appreciating and learning about the natural environment or specific
elements thereof’. As such, it involves a wide spectrum of possible activities, such
as ‘hard ecotourism’, which involves long specialized trips, physically active, nonmediated experiences with the natural environment, and ‘soft eco-tourism’, which has
a moderate environmental commitment, characterized by multi-purpose short trips,
usually of large groups of predominately physically passive, hedonic types of people
(e.g. organized safari tours). Soft ecotourism comprises many of the characteristics of
A. Terzi´ c and D. Demirovi´ c Bajrami
an urging need to promote sustainable development (Butcher 2008). Furthermore,
the media attention and popularity of environmentally sensitive issues and sustainability are reaching more and more tourists. It is evident that greater awareness
and environmentally favourable attitudes positively affected the intentions for future
ecotourism practices and choices of travel destinations (Lam and Hsu 2006; Han
et al. 2010). Increased levels of environmental education and mass media affected
tourists’ tendencies to adopt environmentally friendly behaviour (Sharpley 2006).
Also, Hultman et al. (2015 p. 2) declared that, in an environmentalism context, ‘the
value-beliefs-norm theory suggests that values indirectly form pro-environmental
behaviour by spurring favourable environmental beliefs and attitudes toward ecotourism attractions’, and empirically confirmed that these values exert a direct
effective influence on consumer behaviour.
Though many academics explored various topics related to typologies and ecotourism, few have investigated representative samples for countries as a whole. This
study provides a theoretical retrospective on the issues of tourist motivation and ecotourism, both being an open debate within academic society since the 1970s, along
with the determination of eco-tourist profiles and specific tourism market niches
within the European region.
This study aims to examine if human values sets, indicating basic motivational
aspects that are shared by the European population in general, could be used for the
creation of a specific market segmentation model, based on previous theoretical and
empirical findings. The study has a two-folded objective:
1. To create a psychological profile of soft and hard eco-tourists, as an attempt
to understand the set of beliefs that manifest into eco-tourism consumer value
systems.
2. To indicate the socio-demographic characteristics and extensiveness of the
potential demand markets.
2 Ecotourism as Sustainable Form of Tourism
Ecotourism is, essentially, a form of nature-based tourism, emphasizing the learning
process as a result of interaction between eco-tourists and the natural environment,
and therefore, it proclaims itself to be the most sustainable form of tourism. According
to Weaver (2001, p. 105) ‘ecotourism is a form of nature-based tourism that strives
to be ecologically, socio-culturally and economically sustainable while providing
opportunities for appreciating and learning about the natural environment or specific
elements thereof’. As such, it involves a wide spectrum of possible activities, such
as ‘hard ecotourism’, which involves long specialized trips, physically active, nonmediated experiences with the natural environment, and ‘soft eco-tourism’, which has
a moderate environmental commitment, characterized by multi-purpose short trips,
usually of large groups of predominately physically passive, hedonic types of people
(e.g. organized safari tours). Soft ecotourism comprises many of the characteristics of