Investigating the Acceptance of Marine Ecotourism after the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article deals with a topic (marine ecotourism) of great interest, current, through a good structure and a well formulated empirical analysis. However, there are some aspects that can be improved (some of them substantially) which are reported below.

I suggest that the authors make explicit (in addition to the 8 starting theories and the variables considered as a consequence) the content of the UTAUT model (what does this model say?).

I believe that paragraph 2.2 should be limited to (broadening) the concept of ecotourism without reference to the specific geographical area analyzed in the article (which is illustrated in paragraph 3.3 where it is suggested to move the references to Taiwan contained in paragraph 2.2 to highlight that the area considered has ecotourism profiles).

It would be useful if, in section 3.1, the variables, the corresponding questions of the questionnaire and their bibliographical sources were shown in a table rather than in the text.

The part of the empirical analysis appears well articulated and methodologically consistent.

The weakest part of the paper is represented by the last paragraph (5). There is no part dedicated to the discussion of the results (except for some considerations on the facilitating conditions). Also the part on implications seems not significant and not clearly related to the results. It is necessary to expand it with further and more relevant considerations. Among other things, it is suggested to reflect on some aspects such as: the role of "sea entrepreneurs" (considering only tourism operators seems reductive); the role of organizations specifically dedicated to the protection of the sea and the sustainable use of this natural resource (we refer in particular to marine protected areas, on which articles have appeared in Sustainability); the potential of public-private collaborations (partnerships) in the development of marine ecotourism.

Author Response

Reviewer #1

Reviewer #1

Response:

First of all, we appreciate your comments and suggestions. Your comments and suggestions make a valuable contribution to this paper. If this paper is accepted by the Sustainability, we definitely ascribe the achievement to your assistance. We have responded to your comments and suggestions in sequence as follows.

Major comments:

1.The article deals with a topic (marine ecotourism) of great interest, current, through a good structure and a well formulated empirical analysis. However, there are some aspects that can be improved (some of them substantially) which are reported below.

I suggest that the authors make explicit (in addition to the 8 starting theories and the variables considered as a consequence) the content of the UTAUT model (what does this model say?).

Response:

Thank you for your comments. Below is the following revision in “Section 2.1” of the revised paper:

The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) mainly explores the factors that affect individuals’ behaviors and is used to predict and explain humans’ behavioral intentions and actual behaviors. UTAUT dates back to the theory of reasoned action (TRA) based on the perspective of social psychology. Scholars continuously integrated past theories and added new viewpoints to more comprehensive research. Therefore, the model had been made accurate prior to forming UTAUT….

2. I believe that paragraph 2.2 should be limited to (broadening) the concept of ecotourism without reference to the specific geographical area analyzed in the article (which is illustrated in paragraph 3.3 where it is suggested to move the references to Taiwan contained in paragraph 2.2 to highlight that the area considered has ecotourism profiles).

Response:

Thank you for your comments. We have moved the description for specific regions from Section 2.2 to Section 3.3 of the revised paper. Only marine ecotourism was described in Section 2.2.

3. It would be useful if, in section 3.1, the variables, the corresponding questions of the questionnaire and their bibliographical sources were shown in a table rather than in the text.

Response:

Thank you for your comments. In the revised paper, we have summarized all aspects, measurement items, and corresponding references in tables. The table numbers were also revised accordingly. For instance, the original Table 1 was revised to Table 2, and so on. Noteworthily, we have added Table 1 in Section 3.2. The revised description was added to Section 3.2 as follows:

,,,The aspects, measurement items, and corresponding references are shown in Table 1.

4. The part of the empirical analysis appears well articulated and methodologically consistent.

Response:

Thanks for your recognition.

5. The weakest part of the paper is represented by the last paragraph (5). There is no part dedicated to the discussion of the results (except for some considerations on the facilitating conditions). Also the part on implications seems not significant and not clearly related to the results. It is necessary to expand it with further and more relevant considerations. Among other things, it is suggested to reflect on some aspects such as: the role of "sea entrepreneurs" (considering only tourism operators seems reductive); the role of organizations specifically dedicated to the protection of the sea and the sustainable use of this natural resource (we refer in particular to marine protected areas, on which articles have appeared in Sustainability); the potential of public-private collaborations (partnerships) in the development of marine ecotourism.

Response:

Thanks for your comments. We have deleted Section 5.2 and rewritten the last section in the revised paper. We have also revised “5. Conclusions and Implications” into “5. Discussion and Conclusions”. Therefore, “5.1 Conclusions” has been revised to “5.1 Discussion”, and the original “5.1 Conclusions” has been revised to “5.2 Conclusions”.

This section has been revised as follows:

5.1 Discussion

This study empirically found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism. We believe that the main reason is that government agencies play an extremely important role in protecting marine ecology and the development of marine ecotourism. However, they have failed to do their due functions. For instance, whale-watching in Taiwan has been developing for 20 years. Compared with regulations on whale-watching in other countries and regions, Taiwan acts slowly in formulating corresponding laws to regulate the behaviors of ships engaging in wildlife observation and entertainment activities at sea. Finally, the whale-watching industry cooperated with the Ocean Conservation Administration to formulate regulations for friendly whale-watching in 2021. However, these regulations still lack strict implementation and execution from the government.

Furthermore, government agencies can formulate effective regulations to protect marine tourism sites in order to develop marine ecology. In Taiwan, the Ocean Conservation Administration under the Ocean Affairs Council is the government agency responsible for marine ecological conservation, marine pollution prevention, and marine resource management. In particular, they are the policy-making agencies for maintaining and conserving marine biodiversity in the government. However, the Ocean Conservation Administration was not established until April 28, 2018. Therefore, the formulation and revision of relevant laws and regulations cannot keep up with marine ecotourism development.

Moreover, in terms of financial expenditure, local governments have a limited budget allocated for marine ecotourism development. The government has few resources to develop and construct more tourist attractions near the whale-watching sites. Thus, marine ecotourism development can only rely heavily on private practitioners. Therefore, tourists may suspect that government investments in developing marine ecotourism are insufficient. The study found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism.

Reviewer 2 Report

This study verified the validity and reliability of the dimensions by confirmatory factor analysis and evaluated the mediating effect of marine ecotourism intentions by nested-model analysis, providing substantive policy recommendations as a reference for tourism 18 management units and local governments. Topics treated in this manuscript are interesting and useful for readers of Sustainability.

Resolution of all figures is not good

Author Response

Reviewer #2

Response:

First of all, we appreciate your comments and suggestions. Your comments and suggestions make a valuable contribution to this paper. If this paper is accepted by the Sustainability, we definitely ascribe the achievement to your assistance. We have responded to your comments and suggestions in sequence as follows.

Major comments:

This study verified the validity and reliability of the dimensions by confirmatory factor analysis and evaluated the mediating effect of marine ecotourism intentions by nested-model analysis, providing substantive policy recommendations as a reference for tourism 18 management units and local governments. Topics treated in this manuscript are interesting and useful for readers of Sustainability.

Resolution of all figures is not good

Response:

Thank you very much for your comments and encouragement. Your recognition is one of the driving forces for persisting in our research. This study strived to be rigorous in its research methods, in which the goodness of fit model has been tested by various methods. Although the test results are not good enough, the results are within the acceptable range.

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper is to use the method of UTAUT to proof Taiwan marine ecotourism’s behavior affected by the 5 factors which can be composed from performance expectancy, effect expectancy, social inference, facilitating conditions and environmental attitude. According to the operation, this study chose 4 areas in Taiwan and issued questionnaires to secured a positive outcome to conclude that the mentioned 5 factors only “facilitating conditions” has no inferences on tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions during the COVID season.

The paper nevertheless will need some revisions before publication:

1. Base on the research outcome and analysis of questionnaires, the paper seems hardly to refer the influence and impact on Taiwan marine ecotourism industry during the COVID season. The research itself, seems designed on the normal time period without pandemic instead of focusing on the particular COVID season. It might create a problem that the research design can’t fit into the topic of this paper.

2. In paras. 433-435, p. 14. Regarding the explanation over the factor of “facilitate conditions” had no influence on tourist’s marine ecotourism intentions is too simple. According to the definition of “facilitate conditions”(in page 6), it seems depend on the offering by Taiwan government. Therefore, what reasons caused the factor had no influence? Does it imply Taiwan government’s insufficient input on the marine ecotourism industry? or just reflected distrust attitude to the government by people? Further explanation should be more discuss in this paper.

3. In part 5.2--implications, the authors just emphasize the importance of the input over the field of marine ecotourism in Taiwan. However, the conclusion is more like common sense rather than phenomenon explanation. All of the suggestion, recommendation are based on the scientific result will add more contribution in this paper.

Author Response

Reviewer #3

Response:

First of all, we appreciate your comments and suggestions. Your comments and suggestions make a valuable contribution to this paper. If this paper is accepted by the Sustainability, we definitely ascribe the achievement to your assistance. We have responded to your comments and suggestions in sequence as follows.

Major comments:

1. This paper is to use the method of UTAUT to proof Taiwan marine ecotourism’s behavior affected by the 5 factors which can be composed from performance expectancy, effect expectancy, social inference, facilitating conditions and environmental attitude. According to the operation, this study chose 4 areas in Taiwan and issued questionnaires to secured a positive outcome to conclude that the mentioned 5 factors only “facilitating conditions” has no inferences on tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions during the COVID season.

The paper nevertheless will need some revisions before publication:

Base on the research outcome and analysis of questionnaires, the paper seems hardly to refer the influence and impact on Taiwan marine ecotourism industry during the COVID season. The research itself, seems designed on the normal time period without pandemic instead of focusing on the particular COVID season. It might create a problem that the research design can’t fit into the topic of this paper.

Response:

Thanks for your comments. Although the COVID-19 pandemic did not cause large-scale infections and impacts in Taiwan compared to other countries and regions, almost all industries in Taiwan are affected, especially tourism. Our research team conducted a questionnaire survey during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically investigating how the COVID-19 pandemic affected marine ecotourism intentions and behaviors. This can be seen from the questionnaire’s measurement items and the time when the questionnaires were sent and collected. In particular, the questionnaire survey in this study showed that the COVID-19 pandemic brought a considerable impact on the tourism industry of Taiwan. Compared with the seasons not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of whale-watching tourists in eastern Taiwan has dropped significantly.

2. In paras. 433-435, p. 14. Regarding the explanation over the factor of “facilitate conditions” had no influence on tourist’s marine ecotourism intentions is too simple. According to the definition of “facilitate conditions”(in page 6), it seems depend on the offering by Taiwan government. Therefore, what reasons caused the factor had no influence? Does it imply Taiwan government’s insufficient input on the marine ecotourism industry? or just reflected distrust attitude to the government by people? Further explanation should be more discuss in this paper.

Response:

Thank you for your comments. We have provided a discussion on this topic in Section 5.1 of the revised paper. In “5.1 Discussion”, we discussed the role of government agencies in marine ecotourism and explained possible reasons why facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism. The following revision is as follows:

5.1 Discussion

This study empirically found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism. We believe that the main reason is that government agencies play an extremely important role in protecting marine ecology and the development of marine ecotourism. However, they have failed to do their due functions. For instance, whale-watching in Taiwan has been developing for 20 years. Compared with regulations on whale-watching in other countries and regions, Taiwan acts slowly in formulating corresponding laws to regulate the behaviors of ships engaging in wildlife observation and entertainment activities at sea. Finally, the whale-watching industry cooperated with the Ocean Conservation Administration to formulate regulations for friendly whale-watching in 2021. However, these regulations still lack strict implementation and execution from the government.

Furthermore, government agencies can formulate effective regulations to protect marine tourism sites in order to develop marine ecology. In Taiwan, the Ocean Conservation Administration under the Ocean Affairs Council is the government agency responsible for marine ecological conservation, marine pollution prevention, and marine resource management. In particular, they are the policy-making agencies for maintaining and conserving marine biodiversity in the government. However, the Ocean Conservation Administration was not established until April 28, 2018. Therefore, the formulation and revision of relevant laws and regulations cannot keep up with marine ecotourism development.

Moreover, in terms of financial expenditure, local governments have a limited budget allocated for marine ecotourism development. The government has few resources to develop and construct more tourist attractions near the whale-watching sites. Thus, marine ecotourism development can only rely heavily on private practitioners. Therefore, tourists may suspect that government investments in developing marine ecotourism are insufficient. The study found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism.

3. In part 5.2--implications, the authors just emphasize the importance of the input over the field of marine ecotourism in Taiwan. However, the conclusion is more like common sense rather than phenomenon explanation. All of the suggestion, recommendation are based on the scientific result will add more contribution in this paper.

Response:

Thank you for your comments. We have deleted “5.2. Implications” in the revised paper. Meanwhile, we have revised “5. Conclusions and Implications” into “5. Discussion and Conclusions”. Therefore, “5.1 Conclusions” has been revised to “5.1 Discussion”, and the original “5.1 Conclusions” has been revised to “5.2 Conclusions”. In “5.1 Discussion”, we discussed the role of government agencies in marine ecotourism as follows:

5.1 Discussion

This study empirically found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism. We believe that the main reason is that government agencies play an extremely important role in protecting marine ecology and the development of marine ecotourism. However, they have failed to do their due functions. For instance, whale-watching in Taiwan has been developing for 20 years. Compared with regulations on whale-watching in other countries and regions, Taiwan acts slowly in formulating corresponding laws to regulate the behaviors of ships engaging in wildlife observation and entertainment activities at sea. Finally, the whale-watching industry cooperated with the Ocean Conservation Administration to formulate regulations for friendly whale-watching in 2021. However, these regulations still lack strict implementation and execution from the government.

Furthermore, government agencies can formulate effective regulations to protect marine tourism sites in order to develop marine ecology. In Taiwan, the Ocean Conservation Administration under the Ocean Affairs Council is the government agency responsible for marine ecological conservation, marine pollution prevention, and marine resource management. In particular, they are the policy-making agencies for maintaining and conserving marine biodiversity in the government. However, the Ocean Conservation Administration was not established until April 28, 2018. Therefore, the formulation and revision of relevant laws and regulations cannot keep up with marine ecotourism development.

Moreover, in terms of financial expenditure, local governments have a limited budget allocated for marine ecotourism development. The government has few resources to develop and construct more tourist attractions near the whale-watching sites. Thus, marine ecotourism development can only rely heavily on private practitioners. Therefore, tourists may suspect that government investments in developing marine ecotourism are insufficient. The study found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revision work carried out by the authors on the basis of my indications is appreciable.
In my opinion, however, the shortcoming regarding the Discussion section remains. It should contain the commentary on the results highlighted quantitatively in section 4. The current section 5.1 includes more concluding remarks than discussion. Therefore, it is suggested to write and insert a section "discussion"(5) - critical commentary on the results - and to conclude the article with section 6 "conclusions" (combining sections 5.1 and 5.2 of the current version of the article).

Author Response

Reviewer #1

Response:

First of all, we appreciate your comments and suggestions. Your comments and suggestions make a valuable contribution to this paper. If this paper is accepted by the Sustainability, we definitely ascribe the achievement to your assistance. We have responded to your comments and suggestions in sequence as follows.

Major comments:

The revision work carried out by the authors on the basis of my indications is appreciable.

In my opinion, however, the shortcoming regarding the Discussion section remains. It should contain the commentary on the results highlighted quantitatively in section 4. The current section 5.1 includes more concluding remarks than discussion. Therefore, it is suggested to write and insert a section "discussion"(5) - critical commentary on the results - and to conclude the article with section 6 "conclusions" (combining sections 5.1 and 5.2 of the current version of the article).

Response:

Thank you for your comments. We have revised the paper according to your comments. We have added Section 5. Discussion in the revised paper. After amending the sentences in the original 5.1 and 5.2, the two subsections were merged into Section 6. Conclusions. We have done our best to revise this paper, and we hope that it can meet your demand. The corrections are as follows:

5. Discussion

First, in terms of theoretical model construction, this paper used the UTAUT model which was proposed by Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis [15] as the basis of the theoretical model, and added the dimension of environmental attitude to establish an extended UTAUT model. In terms of dimension measurement, in order to evaluate the internal quality of the model, this study employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the dimension measurements and indicators, such as the confidence of an individual program, and the significant level of estimated parameters, CR, and AVE, to estimate the measurement model. The confidence and validity of each dimension were found to have met the required standards. Second, according to the empirical results of structural equation modeling (SEM), the extended and revised UTAUT model, as proposed by this study, had a good model fit, including χ²/df, Standardized RMR, Normed Fit Index (NFI), Relative Fit Index (RFI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Parsimony Goodness of Fit Index (PGFI), Parsimony Normed Fit Index (PNFI), and other types of goodness-of-fit. While the path of facilitating conditions to marine ecotourism intentions failed to reach a significant level, all other paths of the structure model reached a significant level. An analysis of the mediating effect of marine ecotourism intention also revealed that marine ecotourism intention had a partially mediating effect. According to empirical analysis results, the UTAUT model can be revised based on different research topics and can serve as a reference for subsequent studies. As an important theoretical model in behavior theory, if the UTAUT model can be combined with other dimensions, as based on the research situations, it can increase the explanatory power and degree of fit for models in predicting individual behavioral intentions and actual behaviors.

Regarding the theoretical model proposed by this study, social influence is the most important factor to affect marine ecotourism intention, followed by environmental attitude and performance expectancy, with effort expectancy being the least influential factor. Meanwhile, facilitating conditions, which we will explain in the conclusion of the next chapter, have no impact.

Among the factors affecting travelers' marine ecotourism intention, social influence is the most influential, mainly because word of mouth no longer relies on physical contact between people due to the rapid development of social software. Tracking, following, and interacting on social media can exert more social influence, and the influence of the beautiful pictures and text introductions posted on social media is much greater than before. Thus, many tourists may not want to engage in marine ecotourism, in fact, they only want to participate in marine ecotourism so that they can post photos. Photo-oriented tourism is a research topic worthy of future attention.

Environmental attitudes should include environmental values and environmental beliefs. In recent years, due to the increasingly severe environmental damage and the rise of environmental protection activities, there are more customers with environmental protection awareness, and consumer environmentalism and citizen’s environmental protection awareness are on the rise. More and more tourists understand the importance of environmental protection, and the evaluation degree of people's belief in the natural environment is also showing a positive attitude. Under the influence of environmental protection education, many tourists have engaged in marine ecotourism and really want to learn information and knowledge about marine ecological conservation through marine leisure activities and the marine ecological environment by listening to ecological commentators’ commentaries on marine ecology. These two factors are very positive for marine ecotourism development.

The final part concerns effort expectancy, which is a measurement dimension in the traditional model and is used by the UTAUT model to measure the degree of devoted effort or the degree of difficulty, as perceived by people to engage in certain behaviors. Considering that eastern Taiwan is a relatively remote area in Taiwan, this study specifically focused on the effort expectancy in traffic accessibility. There is only one railway and one highway for transportation to large cities in the west, and no high-speed railway or expressway due to the formidable block caused by the Central Mountain Range. While we originally expected effort expectancy to have the largest impact, the empirical results indicated that it had the smallest impact, which is possibly because people in Taiwan could not carry out overseas travel and had no interest in crowded domestic attractions due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Therefore, due to risk awareness, tourists were willing to spend more time on transportation to visit domestic attractions with fewer people, indicating that the impact of transportation was not that great. In addition, the results of this study further explain the tourism status under the COVID-19 epidemic.

6. Conclusions

The literature review shows that there are few studies on marine ecotourism intentions and marine ecotourism behaviors by the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). Especially, due to the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions and behaviors were rarely studied. The empirical results of this study show that under the COVID-19 pandemic, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and environmental attitude had an influence on tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions, whereas, facilitating conditions had no influence on tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions, and this might be because Taiwan still needs to improve the development and management of marine ecotourism. The empirical results show that tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions have a significantly positive influence on their marine ecotourism behaviors, which is the same finding as previous studies on the relationship between ecotourism intentions and ecotourism behaviors [53].

This study empirically found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism. We believe that the main reason is that government agencies play an extremely important role in protecting marine ecology and the development of marine ecotourism. However, they have failed to do their due functions. For instance, whale-watching in Taiwan has been developing for 20 years. Compared with regulations on whale-watching in other countries and regions, Taiwan acts slowly in formulating corresponding laws to regulate the behaviors of ships engaging in wildlife observation and entertainment activities at sea. Finally, the whale-watching industry cooperated with the Ocean Conservation Administration to formulate regulations for friendly whale-watching in 2021. However, these regulations still lack strict implementation and execution from the government.

Furthermore, government agencies can formulate effective regulations to protect marine tourism sites in order to develop marine ecology. In Taiwan, the Ocean Conservation Administration under the Ocean Affairs Council is the government agency responsible for marine ecological conservation, marine pollution prevention, and marine resource management. In particular, they are the policy-making agencies for maintaining and conserving marine biodiversity in the government. However, the Ocean Conservation Administration was not established until April 28, 2018. Therefore, the formulation and revision of relevant laws and regulations cannot keep up with marine ecotourism development.

Moreover, in terms of financial expenditure, local governments have a limited budget allocated for marine ecotourism development. The government has few resources to develop and construct more tourist attractions near the whale-watching sites. Thus, marine ecotourism development can only rely heavily on private practitioners. Therefore, tourists may suspect that government investments in developing marine ecotourism are insufficient. The study found that facilitating conditions do not affect tourists’ intentions to engage in marine ecotourism.

In order to develop marine tourism, government agencies can develop effective laws and regulations to protect the natural environment of tourist attractions, and government agencies and private non-profit organizations can encourage people to be aware of the importance of marine environment conservation through education, publicity, and media. Regarding future marine ecotourism development, it is important to precondition and cultivate marine environmental awareness among tourists and induce behaviors that take responsibility for the marine environment. Tourism operators should invest in establishing marine ecological images for their tourism sites, including obtaining tourism quality management certifications, complying with relevant regulations, and improving marine tourism quality. Through the interpretation of professional narrators, visitors can understand the ecology of whales and dolphins, deeply experience the benign interaction between human and marine animals, appreciate these whales and dolphins, and understand why whales and dolphins are needed and how to cherish and protect them, in order that more people can learn how to live in harmony with them. This is the significance of marine ecotourism development.