Sustainable Tourism Development: Exploring the Relationship of Travel Agents’ Education and Experience to Their Attitudes on Environmental Issues

Abstract

This study explored the nature of environmental attitudes of travel agents and investigated the relationship of educational level and business experience to their views on 27 environment related issues that are connected with sustainability. Data were collected from 1620 travel agents in Turkey. It was found that considerable numbers of travel agents had environmentally friendly views in respect to the factors contributing to the environmental problems, outcomes of environmental protection activities, importance of environmental criteria and environmental sensitivity of public sector, private sector and NGOs. Chi-square analyses to test the two hypotheses did not provide support for all 27 items. However, travel agents with higher education and long business experience in tourism sector hold generally more sensitive views toward environmental issues and sustainable tourism.