 But are tourists satisfied? Importance-performance analysis of the whale shark tourism industry on Isla Holbox, MexicoJackie Ziegler, Philip Dearden and Rick Rollins Tourism Management, 2012, vol. 33, issue 3, 692-701 Abstract: The objective of this paper is to understand the motivations and satisfactions of whale shark tour participants on Isla Holbox, Mexico in order to assess the success of this industry in meeting customer expectations. Whale shark tour participants were provided with a list of environmental and setting features and asked to rate the importance of, and satisfaction with, each feature. Importance-performance (IP) analysis was used to compare these scores and identify areas of management concern. The IP analysis identified key issues with false advertising, lack of educational information, perceived crowding, and tour cost. These factors are representative of larger issues related to the uncontrolled growth of the whale shark tourism industry on Holbox. Management should focus on limiting the growth of the industry, ensuring the equitable distribution of economic benefits within the industry, and developing and implementing effective guide training and interpretation programs. Keywords: Sustainability; Marine wildlife tourism; Importance-performance analysis; Whale sharks (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:33:y:2012:i:3:p:692-701 DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2011.08.004 Access Statistics for this article Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier |
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