Environmental Impacts of Tourism on a French Urban Coastal Destination: Perceptions of German and British Visitors

Abstract

This study presents an evaluation of the environmental impacts of tourism on the city of Nice using two well-established marketing methods, importance–performance analysis (IPA) and the gap method. Environmental impacts are evaluated by visitors from the two main generating markets of the destination: UK and Germany. The analysis of 211 visitor surveys identified that most of the environmental attributes of the destination required management action. Using the gap method, marginal differences were found on visitors' importance and performance scores of environmental impacts. IPA revealed that most of the environmental impacts measured needed attention, irrespective of visitor nationality. The results suggest that IPA may be a more valuable destination performance assessment tool than using the gap method alone. Eleven importance and only five performance scores were evaluated significantly differently by German and British visitors. Implications for the use of IPA as a destination performance assessment tool and some environmental management strategies are suggested for Nice. Suggestions are also offered on communication strategies for the British and German markets to improve perceptions of the environmental quality of Nice.