The increasing popularity of cycling activities and events, and the need to encourage cycling to reduce tourism greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, require a better understanding of the motivations of cycle tourists. Cycle tourism is one kind of green sustainable tourism. While numbers of aspects of cycle tourism have been identified in previous studies, environmental values might be one of the factors to determine cycle tourism choice. Most findings show that personal factors are the main reason of cycling activity while environmental values play merely little role in the cycle tourism. This thesis project is aimed to study the motivations of non-club recreational cycle tourists in Kalmar, Sweden and the role of environmental values as a motivation of cycle tourism behavior. Qualitative exploration method has been adopted and 13 local cycle tourists have been interviewed for the project. By applying the environmental values framework, this thesis links two main factors of environmental values to the cycle tourism behavior, that is closeness to nature and environmental concern. The findings show that environmental values are good predictor of cycle tourism behavior. The role of environmental values as a motivation of cycle tourism is improving though still not the main motivation. More explicit attention to environmental related knowledge education may inform the operationalization and promotion of local cycle tourism development. As modern people may attach importance to hedonic experience for their cycle tourism activities, further researches are needed to understand the relationship of hedonic consumption values and cycle tourism behaviors. Keywords: cycling tourism; motivation; qualitative; environmental values; closeness to nature; environmental concern
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-76316 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Ling, Hu |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Universitetsförvaltningen, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för organisation och entreprenörskap (OE) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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