2016 Volume 79 Issue 5 Pages 495-500
The study aims to identify the relationship between willingness to pay for environmental protection and tourist satisfaction. The Republic of Palau is selected as a case study, where the national government collects the environmental protection fee of US$30 from all the tourists and the state governments collect the entrance fee of US$10~100 from the tourists who enter protected areas. A questionnaire survey was conducted on Japanese tourists. The study identified that more than 90% of the tourists had affirmative opinions on the payment and wanted to revisit even if they pay around US$50~150. However, more than half of the tourists couldn’t satisfy their payments, as they couldn’t realize their contribution to the environmental protection and/or local society. The satisfaction level of the tourists who leaned the payment system by themselves through magazines or websites was higher than those of the others who were instructed by tour guides or who were not informed by anybody. These results indicate that if the governments improve the transparency of their use of money and notify the tourists of positive effects on local society and/or environmental protection, more tourists could realize their contribution and recognize their responsibility as beneficiaries.
