International Tourists’ Behaviors and Environmental Values for Sustainability in Tourism and Hospitality Business: A Systematic Review in Hurghada

Abstract

The tourism industry has a dramatic impact on the world’s economy and development. The impacts of Travel and Tourism (T&T) on the natural and social environment have been a long-standing focus of tourism and hospitality researches. Sustainability is a critical business issue that is becoming a mandatory requirement for sustainable tourism and hospitality business. For this reason, it is important to study international tourist’ behavior, supporting sustainable production and consuming sustainable products and services that are functions of travel consumer’s values. The study presented a systematic analysis that focused on sustainability values (SVs) of tourists and the provision of hotels with respect to sustainability .The empirical study used a structural data from international tourists in Hurghada - as a sustainable tourist destination in Egypt. Data were obtained how Sustainable Values (SVs) predict tourist’s choice for sustainable tourism and hospitality businesses and how travel consumer’ values are important in making businesses more competitive. The sample of this study consisted of 450 international tourists stayed at hotels in Hurghada from the period of September 2016 to January 2017.The effect of those sustainability values (SVs), however, is partially mediated by the tourists’ environmental behaviors. Extending the respondents’ behavior, international tourists were grouped into an environment-supporting group called sustainable tourist(strong-sustainers) and an environment-normal group termed (neutral –sustainers). Based on these findings to the tourism market, stakeholders could offer targeted sustainability messages for the proposed tourists (strong-sustainer).