Start Date
8-1-2011 8:00 AM
End Date
8-1-2011 9:15 AM
Track
1. Track 1 – Formal Paper Presentation
Subject Area
Travel and Tourism
Faculty Member
Stepchenkova,Svetlana
Abstract
Ecotourism is gaining popularity. Ecolodge is a unique lodging sector because it provides both accommodation and comprehensive ecotourism experience. This study aims at constructing ecotourists’ travel experience to ecotourism destinations and stay at ecolodges and finding the factors contributing to the consumption satisfaction. Costa Rican ecolodges are used as a case study. The online user-generated reviews posted by travelers were used as the qualitative material. The study methodology is content analysis. Research results indicated that ecotourists’ travel experience and stay with ecolodges could be categorized to 7 categories and 27 attributes. A typology of factors contributing to ecotourists’ satisfaction with eco-experience at ecolodges was proposed: criticals, satisfiers, dissatisfiers, and neutrals.
Keywords
ecotourism, ecolodge, user-generated content, travel experience, satisfaction
U.S. Ecotourists’ Travel Experience and Satisfaction Reported on the World Wide Web: A Case of Costa Rica Ecolodges
Ecotourism is gaining popularity. Ecolodge is a unique lodging sector because it provides both accommodation and comprehensive ecotourism experience. This study aims at constructing ecotourists’ travel experience to ecotourism destinations and stay at ecolodges and finding the factors contributing to the consumption satisfaction. Costa Rican ecolodges are used as a case study. The online user-generated reviews posted by travelers were used as the qualitative material. The study methodology is content analysis. Research results indicated that ecotourists’ travel experience and stay with ecolodges could be categorized to 7 categories and 27 attributes. A typology of factors contributing to ecotourists’ satisfaction with eco-experience at ecolodges was proposed: criticals, satisfiers, dissatisfiers, and neutrals.