ABSTRACT
Scholars of tourism studies posit that sustainable tourism needs to be developed in a way that all tourism activities, especially those involving the natural environment, be carefully managed in order to avert/minimize possible negative impacts on its existence, tourists’ satisfaction, and the local community at large [1, 2]. Environmental sustainability, therefore, is no longer a distant factor when analyzing tourism destinations; in fact, the concept of sustainability in general has become an integral part of most tourism businesses and destinations’ strategic planning, especially in emerging tourism destinations. Environmental sustainability concerns, however, can have double causality: Tourists seek destinations that are well preserved; while local communities are concerned with the impact tourism has on the natural environment. The latter is not part of this investigation; along with the emphasis on the importance of sustainable environment, the focus of this investigation is on tourists’ satisfaction in emergent microtourism destinations using the concept of customer satisfaction within the framework of consumer behavior. Therefore, the main purpose of this investigation is on testing the factors that influence tourist behavior to determine if the quality of the natural environment is of major concern to tourists.
