A Research And Environmental Ethics-Based Empirical Analysis On The Development Of Localized Ecotourism

This paper reviewed the international research progress on ecotourism, the development of China’s ecotourism localization, and research progress on environmental ethics both in China and foreign countries, based on which it discussed the differences of ecotourism practice in China and that in other countries and analyzed the reasons behind them. After a summary of the definitions of ecotourism and previous discussions on the essence of ecotourism, this paper examined the current situation of China’s ecotourism and its localization. On the basis of the above work, this paper explained China’s ecotourism localization in the perspective of environmental ethics through application of the6key words-harmony, justice, rights, values, aesthetics and education. It explored the possibility of introducing the value assessment method of ecological economics into quantitative research of environmental ethics-based ecotourism.This paper adopted the choice experiment method in empirical study to evaluate tourists’ value cognition and willingness of virtual payment. The study aimed at verifying5hypotheses:1. there was a rather high value assessment of eco-environment which was the object of eco-tourism;2. eco-tourists in China, who didn’t have a big difference with normal tourists, had a weak environmental consciousness and their environmental education needed to be strengthened;3. the market size of ecotourism was bigger and bigger and eco-tourists had a higher appreciation on the improvement measure of tourist quantity control;4. eco-tourists in China had a special taste for rural features;5. eco-toursists’value cognition would be influenced by their ecotourism experiences and their social and economic conditions.A preliminary survey was conducted before the choice experiment design. Later, with East China’s residents as examples, a formal questionnaire survey was carried out in Tonglu, Anji and Lin’an Zhejiang province to investigate China’s urban residents’behavior characteristics and ecological consciousness when they participated in ecological tours. Statall was used to conduct likelihood estimation of the three sample regions’performance separately and overall. This research applied2multinomial Logit MNL models to separately analyze the investigation results and overall data of the three regions. The findings of this study showed that generally tourists had expected an improved situation of the four attributes of ecotourism. They attached greater importance to environmental responsibility and unique rural features. They were also supportive of tourist quantity control. However, they were less concerned about environmental education and their value cognition would be influenced by their ecotourism experiences and their social and economic conditions. The results of those models had confirmed the5hypotheses and the localization of China’s ecotourism was examined in the paper in terms of the importance of ecological treatment measures, lack of environmental education, methods of market size control, and tourists’increased appreciation of unique rural features.In conclusion, this paper summarized the system of features and characteristics of China’s ecotourism localization, the essence of ecotourism and the development of China’s characteristic ecotourism, the focus of the research on China’s ecotourism localization in the perspective of environmental ethics, and value cognition of eco-tourists in the three regions towards ecotourism. Furthermore, the feasibility of adopting choice experiment model as the quantitative research method of environmental ethics-based ecotourism was verified. In the end, deficiencies occurred in the study were analyzed and future expectations in this field were made.