Abstract
Sustainability has become one of the key factors for the development of tourism both nowadays and in the future. The need to integrate environmental, socio-cultural and economic factors is a consequence of the evolution of society itself, the introduction of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and a new way of understanding tourism and the world in general. Tourists increasingly seek a unique quality in their travels and are better informed before deciding on a tourist destination to spend their holidays or leisure time. They want to have unique, memorable experiences, and because of that, they are willing to look for those destinations that can offer them something different. The generation of expectations is no longer the sole responsibility of companies and public and private organizations in destinations, since information may be in the hands of the individuals themselves who can share it in social networks, blogs, or on platforms such as Booking or TripAdvisor, among others. This forces companies and public and private organizations to rethink the way in which and when they relate to tourists in general. With all these considerations, one of the objectives of this study was to analyse the way in which sustainability interrelates with the generation of expectations, experiences and perceptions and the effect on the possibilities of returning to a tourist destination and even recommending it in social networks to friends and acquaintances. For this reason, the destination of Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, was chosen, a mature destination of sun and beach that, in recent years, has been immersed in a process of change where one of the axes is sustainability. This study used a convenience survey with 310 valid questionnaires with tourists who stayed more than three days in Acapulco during the months of December 2016 to February 2017. The questionnaires were completed at different points of the destination and by participants over 18 years of age. We used SEM (Structural Equations Modeling) and EQS (Structural Equation Modeling Software) for statistical analysis. The results of the study showed how expectations influenced experiences and the intention to return to the destination and recommend it (WOM), thus, we proposed a series of recommendations for public and private agents that manage this tourist destination.
Highlights
The concept of sustainable tourism emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, and since there has been increasing interest both by researchers and academics, as well as by tourists and professionals in the tourism sector [1,2,3,4]
Structural equation modelling (SEM) was carried out for the analysis, and the main results obtained were that the destination’s sustainability affects the way in which this is valued by tourists according to the expectations that condition their experiences in the destination, in the same way that these condition their intention to return and their future recommendations to social, family and professional circles
In order to carry out the research, we initially based our study on the analysis of other works on sustainability and management of experiences in tourism to create the different measurement scales and refined them to obtain a series of indicators that met the objectives of the study
Summary
The concept of sustainable tourism emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, and since there has been increasing interest both by researchers and academics, as well as by tourists and professionals in the tourism sector [1,2,3,4]. The World Tourism Organization established an environmental committee in 1978 to agree on the lines of work necessary to achieve tourism that respects the environment, it was not until the mid-90s when international organizations undertook different activities in favour of sustainable tourism, being a clear referent to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992, organized by the United Nations [3,7,14] It was a consequence of the rapid growth of tourism (in terms of volume and geographic coverage) during the development period of European economies after World War II, and the negative effects of the massive tourism development model that led to greater environmental awareness, beginning with the Brundtland Report [4,8,10,11,15]. For example, Bramwell and Lane [12] were the first authors who, in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, defined the term
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