From the perspective of ecotourism supply and use this study aims to investigate the effects of ecological resources, facilities, information and management on ecotourism satisfaction in order to provide answers to the question ‘how is the ecotourism satisfaction formed?’. A conceptual framework determining the ecotourism satisfaction is based on both previous theoretical studies on ecotourism and development/operation of domestic ecotourism destinations.
In doing so, the ecotourism satisfaction is hypothesized to be related to the direct and indirect effects of the variables representing ecological resources, planning factors and activities. The study surveys tourists who visit ''Upo Wet'' representative of domestic ecotourism destinations for hypothesis verification and empirical data collection. From October 28 to November 6, 2017, data on 345 visitors to Upo Wet were collected, and then 330 were used for the analysis except for the unreliable responses and anomalies. The data were analyzed using statistics programs such as SPSS Statistics 17, SAS Ver. 12.1, and LISREL 8.51 to conduct statistical analysis of single variables, Pearson correlation analysis and path analysis. The results are as follows.
In the statistical summary of the single variables, the average value of ecological resources is 7.066, which is the highest among the variables. Those of facilities, management, information, environmental awareness, and satisfaction are 7.012, 6.790, 6.763, 6.860 and 6.730, respectively. The results of correlation analysis among seven variables of ecological resources, facilities, information, management, activities, environmental awareness, and satisfaction are all statistically significant at 0.01 level. The activities satisfaction is most positively correlated with the environmental awareness with 0.831 of correlation coefficient, while the ecological resources are highly related with the information with 0.455 of correlation coefficient. The path analysis shows that 1) the ecological resources have a direct effect on the facilities, and 2) the causal effect of the ecological resources and the facilities on the information are 0.46 (= direct effect (0.10) + indirect effect (0.36)) and 0.66 (=direct effect), respectively. The direct effect is 67.86%, whereas the indirect effect was 32.14%. 3) The causal effects of the ecological resources, the facilities and the information on the management are 0.53 (= direct effect (0.11) + indirect effect (0.42)) and 0.70 (= direct effect (0.42) + indirect effect (0.28)), 0.43 (= direct effect), respectively. Overall, the direct effect is 57.83% with the direct effect of 0.43 while the indirect effect is 42.17%. 4) The causal effects of the ecological resources, the facilities, the information and the management on the activities are 0.54 (= direct effect (0.18) + indirect effect (0.36)), 0.55 (= direct effect (0.20) + indirect effect(0.35)), 0.44 (= direct effect (0.38) + indirect effect (0.06)), and 0.15 (= direct effect), respectively. Overall, the direct effect is 54.17% while the indirect effect is 45.83%. 5) The causal effects of the ecological resources, the facilities, the information, the management and the activities on the environmental awareness are 0.49 (= indirect effect), 0.60 (= direct effect (0.17) + indirect effect (0.43)), 0.41 (= direct effect (0.14) + indirect effect (0.27)), 0.09 (= indirect effect) and 0.61 (= direct effect), respectively. Overall, the direct effect is 41.82%, while the indirect is 58.18%. 6) The causal effects on the satisfaction of the ecological resources, the facilities, the information, the management, the activities and the environmental awareness are 0.53 (= direct effect (0.15) + indirect effect (0.38)), 0.49 (= direct effect (0.17) + indirect effect (0.25)), 0.19 (= direct effect (0.15) + indirect effect (0.04)), 0.27 (= indirect effect) and 0.45 (= direct effect), respectively. Overall, the direct effect is 39.15%, while the indirect is 60.85%.
As a result, the environmental awareness has the most direct effect on the satisfaction, while the facilities have the largest indirect effect. Plus, the ecological resources have the greatest causal effect. In other words, it can be confirmed that the ecological resources are the most important factor determining the ecotourism satisfaction. Furthermore, improving facilities as the planning factors may be effective in increasing ecotourists’ satisfaction. Finally, it suggests that the environmental awareness has the direct effect on the satisfaction. Thus, it is necessary to motivate visitors to fully understand the value and importance of the ecological resources and to change the environmental awareness. The evaluation model derived from the principle of supply and use is meaningful to understand and explain the ecotourists’ satisfaction. The validity of the causal effects between the variables is useful in understanding and explaining the problems of ecological resources, planning and activity factors. The study is different from previous studies in that it displays the direct and indirect effects of ecotourism satisfaction using causal analysis. It is important to secure and manage excellent ecological resources in order to build ecotourism destinations which meet ecotourists'' needs. Moreover, it is central to making efforts to enhance the quality of facilities, information, management, activities and environmental awareness as the intermediate variables.
The Upo Wetland was selected as the study area to evaluate ecotourism satisfaction. However, it would be difficult to generalize the findings to other ecotourism destinations. Therefore, further researches should be conducted for other types of ecotourism sites. In addition, it focuses on the endogenous factors affecting the ecotourism, and thus it is lacking in consideration of exogenous factors such as accessibility and transportation. Therefore, further studies are required to analyze the ecotourism satisfaction using both endogenous and exogenous components.