Tourist choice of sustainable hot springs tourism under post‐COVID‐19 pandemic period: A case in Colorado

Abstract

AbstractHot springs tourism has increasingly attracted tourists who pursue wellness and harmony with the natural environment. This paper investigates how four sustainability‐related attributes influence tourist choice and estimates their marginal willingness to pay for Colorado hot springs tourism under the post‐COVID‐19 pandemic period. A fractional factorial choice experiment design and conditional logit model were used to analyze the choice data of 303 retained respondents collected from the online surveys. The results show the importance of sustainability‐related attributes on tourist choice and suggest the hot springs tourism sector improves destination sustainability to maintain market competitiveness under the post‐COVID‐19 pandemic period.