The Link Between Responsible Tourism Products and Quality

Abstract

The main theme of this thesis is responsible tourism which is an emerging pardigm that needs to be faced. There are more and more responsible tourism companies and products in today’s travel market. It is believed to improve the the travel experience and guarantee the quality of the vacation. The commissioner of this thesis, Oekoplusreisen, is a tour operator that works according to responsible guidelines. The owner of this company was interested to know whether tour operators and travel agencies also see the link with quality and responsible tourism products.

The aims of this thesis were threefold. First it was hoped to build a theoretical background which proves that a responsible tourism product is of better quality. The next aim was to receive results through a quantitative research method. Finally it was hoped to get an answer to a research question that has not been answered before to best satisfy my commissioner’s hopes and construct an innovative idea. The idea was to retrieve illustrative results to the commissioner about the this previously unknown subject. The framework is based on sources about sustainable tourism and quality.

A quantitative research method was chosen for this research where a wholly new questionnaire was conducted in Webropol 2.0 and sent to 3000 travel agencies and tour operators in German speaking countries. One month time was given for the companies to answer. The answeres were analyzed and tabulized with Excel.

The research results show that the link between responsible tourism products and quality is most commonly understood in someway. The results prove an understanding to the fact that responsible tourism products are of improved quality