Understanding tourists’ decisions for eco-tourism in Vietnam

Along with the fast growth of tourism, the concept “sustainable tourism” has been born with the purposes of balancing among the demands of tourists, the benefits of the industry and the impacts on local communities or environment. From that point of view, ecotourism has become the trend over the world. With the large numbers of natural areas and the diversity of ecosystem, Vietnam has high potential for ecotourism development. However, many studies in the past until now have been raising the question of what should be focused to improve the ecotourism destinations and services. Thus, this quantitative research tried to pointed out the factors that affects tourists’ decision of choosing ecotourism destination. A sample group of 142 people who are interested in Vietnam traveling in general and in ecotourism specifically had been tested. Descriptive statistics, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Regression analysis were used to measure the degree of correlation and level of impact between the 05 personal concerns and commitment, as well as the 03 demographic characteristics of tourists and their decisions of choosing ecotourism destinations. The research results showed that tourists’ concerns about the authenticity of ecotourism destination and tourists’ environmental commitment are the 02 factors that affect their decisions to choose ecotourism destination the most. Based on that, recommendations were given to ecotourism service providers in Vietnam.