Environmental Views and Practices in Tourism Industry: A Study on Travel Agency Managers

Abstract

This study was designed to explore travel agents’ environmental views on 45 environmental items and study the basic nature of the travel agencies in Turkey. Data were collected from the representative sample of 1665 travel agents (33.5 % of population) in Turkey. It was found that travel agents have pro-environmental views on the factors causing environmental problems, the contribution of tourism enterprises to environmental problems, the importance given to environmental management criteria and the obstacles to environmental protection in tourism sector. However, their environmental practices showed that there is a great gap between the views and practices, because nearly all agencies do not have any environmental program, budget allocated for environmental protection, membership to any environmental NGOs, and award for any environmental management activity. It was concluded that travel agency managers are in need of reflecting their views to their administrative plans, programs, policies and daily business practices in sustainable ways.