Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Editors: Bill Bramwell (Sheffield Hallam University) and Bernard Lane (Visiting Research Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University)
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Volume: 9 Number: 3 Page: 212–227
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Understanding Coastal and Marine Tourism Demand from Three European Markets: Implications for the Future of Ecotourism
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Gianna Moscardo, Philip Pearce, David Green and Joseph T. O'Leary
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This paper examines the similarities and differences in demand for coastal and marine tourism activities and experiences from three European markets. Long-haul travellers from the United Kingdom, Germany
and The Netherlands were studied using archival survey data. The research explored the similarity of the demand from these markets in order to address the question of whether proposals to shift mass tourism
towards smaller scale alternative types of coastal and marine tourism are consistent with the size of the ecotourism market. The results demonstrated that nationality was an important variable shaping the
size of the ecotourism markets with budget-oriented German ecotourists (46%) providing the largest market share of German coastal and marine tourists. By way of contrast UK ecotourists were the least
cost conscious, but were only 19% of the total UK coastal and marine tourism sector. The paper is supplemented with a commentary on the impacts of the anticipated ecotourism activities. In particular,
the German ecotourism market appears likely to enhance pressures on the environment rather than being a benign alternative to mass tourism activities. In addition, it was argued that cross-national studies
of tourist demand represent an important check on the consistency of tourism trends for destination marketers and managers.
© Channel View Publications 2001
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