Prospects for nature-based tourism: identifying trends with commercial potential

Abstract

Nature-based activities have become business constituents of increasing importance in the tourism industry. In this paper, trends in nature-based tourism with the largest commercial potentials are identified by means of surveys with 60 experts in five different countries/regions with a renowned nature-based tourism sector, collected in three rounds based on Delphi methodology. Results show that the trend categories with the highest impact on commercial opportunities within the next 10 years are related to health, sustainability, soft adventure, digitalization, and professionalization. The ability to recognize and deal with such prospects is a key element of an economically successful, but also environmental and socially sustainable nature-based tourism industry. Thus, the identified developments are of crucial importance to business managers, policymakers, managers of nature areas, and planning authorities.