Willingness to Pay for Sustainable Destinations: A Structural Approach

Abstract

Even though tourists increasingly value sustainable practices in tourism businesses and destinations, price is still one of the main determinant factors in their decisions. Therefore, for destination managers it is essential to understand tourists’ willingness to pay an additional price to visit a place where sustainable practices are adopted. In this context, and building on social psychology theories, the present study proposes and tests a causal model encompassing tourists’ Willingness To Pay (WTP) for sustainability in tourist destinations as well as their own sustainability attitudes, namely: Environmental Beliefs, Ecotour Attitudes, and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour. To this end, data were collected through a questionnaire survey of Portuguese tourists (n = 567). The hypothesised relationships between the latent variables were then tested using Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) procedures. The results show that Environmental Beliefs significantly affected both Ecotour Attitudes and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour, and that the latter two significantly affected WTP. However, no significant effect of Environmental Beliefs on WTP was found. These findings provide useful insights for destination managers aiming to more effectively cater to sustainability-oriented tourists. Future research should attempt to assess the role of other determinants of WTP.