ABSTRACT
With the emergence of the negative effects of mass tourism, especially on the environment and culture, in recent decades many countries have turned to alternative tourism types that have provide sustainable tourism development since the 1990s. Nature-based tourism (NBT), one of these types of tourism, is among the fastest-growing segments of the tourism industry with a growth rate of 10–12 percent per year. Today, countries with various natural resources attach great importance to the development of NBT, which can be considered as a relatively sustainable way of maintaining economic development while avoiding the destruction of the natural environment. Therefore, the increasing demand for the NBT market attracts the attention of destination managers, tourism marketers, tourism operators, and academics serving in this field. At this point, in order to manage the demand for the nature-based tourism market correctly by various stakeholders and to develop effective marketing tools, it is necessary to reveal the reasons that directly and/or indirectly affect tourist behaviours. It is difficult to predict tourist behaviour from a one-dimensional perspective, because rather the tourists’ behaviours are multifactorial. In this respect, it is important to understand the travel characteristics, typologies, motivations, wishes, and needs of tourists participating in nature-based activities. Thus, it will be possible to predict the future behaviour of tourists while helping the relevant stakeholders to offer and develop suitable products, services and experiences for nature-based tourism. From this point of view, this study aims to reveal the travel characteristic features, typologies (segmentation), and intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of tourists participating in nature-based tourism activities through a comprehensive literature review. It is expected that the participants of nature based tourism and nature-based activities that contribute to the literature regarding segmentation and opinions about directing tourists to this type of tourism to be given to destination managers, tourism marketers, tour operators, travel agencies, nature groups associations, etc.
