Beach ‘lovers’ and ‘greens’: A worldwide empirical analysis of coastal tourism

This paper examines worldwide tourist coastal destination choice using a comprehensive global dataset at the country level, for both domestic and international tourists. This data includes a systematic profile of the countries' coastline with respect to economic and natural environments, such as marine biodiversity related indicators. Tourist demand is modelled using a system of simultaneous structural equations estimated by a 3SLS routine. We identify two tourist demand segments, denoting different preferences for the worldwide coastal destinations. International tourists choose their coastal destination because they have a strong preference for the cultural and natural environments. This, in turn, depends on the destination of country's coastal habitat abundance and marine biodiversity. We label this segment of coastal tourism, as “greens”. Alternatively, domestic tourists have a preference for beach characteristics, in particular beach length. This in turn depends on anthropogenic pressure, the built environment and climatic variables. For this reason we interpret this tourism segment as “beach lovers”. This information is, in turn, of high significance for stimulating coastal tourism demand as well as for identifying market based policy instruments with the objective to finance the conservation of environmental and cultural capital hosted at the coastal communities.