Environmental attitudes of golf tourists and their willingness to pay a premium: Towards a more sustainable future of golf

Kahri, Sara Pauliina

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/5874

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Authors

Kahri, Sara Pauliina

Advisor(s)

Jorge, João Paulo da Conceição Silva

Abstract(s)

Tourism and its sustainability have been of interest in many of the past studies, however, golf tourism which is a generator of some serious income to tourism destinations is yet to be scarcely studied, especially in the fields of environmental attitudes and willingness to pay a premium for a round of golf. As environmental consciousness of people has grown it affects to all industries and we shouldn’t forget the possibilities to further develop the sustainability of the golf sector which is the largest sector in the sport tourism market. This study attempts to fill the gap by exploring the opportunities that golf has to further improve its sustainability. This study aims to determine the environmental attitudes of Finnish golfers and whether they would be willing to pay an environmental premium. A quantitative method was applied to this study and an online survey was used to collect answers from golfers around the world but since the majority of the respondents were from Finland this study mainly focuses on the Finnish perspective. In this study, the answers are cross tabulated mainly by the frequency of play and gender in order to distinguish some determinants that would indicate who exactly is the golfer who is concerned about the sustainability of golf courses and who is more willing to pay a premium. The results suggest that golfers are interested in the golf related sustainability matters and they expect golf courses to work towards making their golf courses more sustainable. In addition, it was found out that golfers do have WTP for environmental premium that could further help the golf courses to work towards the sustainable goals as long as the premium is clearly earmarked for some specific target. These results could be of interest for different stakeholders within golf industry who would be interested to apply a premium or eco-tax on their green fee prices in order to work towards more sustainable future of golf.