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Karl Agius et al.

Whereas most participants gave a positive overall rating of the ecotours held in the Pelagic
Islands (100%), Aegadian Islands (85.2%) and Pantelleria (97.2%), just 40% of participants on the
Maltese archipelago ecotour rated the overall experience as positive.
Almost all respondents were willing to go on holiday to an ecodestination, and almost all
respondents (95.2%) were likewise willing to visit a central Mediterranean island as their next
ecodestination, save for a small fraction of participants from the Maltese islands (10%) and
Pantelleria (12%) ecotours. The majority of respondents (95%) said they would recommend the
ecodestination they had visited to their friends for their next holiday.
One should note that positive experience in previous ecotours held in the study area was
also chosen as a motivating factor for successive ecotours. In fact, owing to the positive
experience, some ecotourists participated in two or three of the ecotours organised in the study
area. The relatively high satisfaction ratings recorded through surveys were also confirmed
through focus groups and group interviews, in which respondents claimed to have made
recommendations and showed a willingness to participate in future ecotours or revisit the
ecodestination. Others claimed to have revisited the islands on their own accord to further
appreciate the natural environment. One divergent result is that 30% of respondents who
participated in the ecotour held in the Maltese islands said they were unwilling to recommend
this ecodestination to their friends for their next holiday. In the case of Pantelleria, 4% of
participants said the same.

Table 1: Analysis of results obtained through the surveys held before and after the ecotours
comparing the ecotourists’ evaluations of different ecodestinations, n=85.
Question Degrees of Chi-Squared P value
freedom
Presence of protected areas and
influence on choice of travel to 3 6.54 0.088
a destination
Time spent in contact with 9 34.05 0.001
nature
Activities enjoyed most 48 127.42 0.001
Motivating factors 57 78.63 0.3
Expectations 42 74.28 0.002
Level of satisfaction 6 19.87 0.003
Reasons for lack of satisfaction 22 34.753 0.041
Overall rating 9 38.03 0.001
Willingness to participate in 3 2.174 0.537
another ecotour
Willingness to visit other 3 5.64 0.131
central Mediterranean islands
Willingness to recommend the 3 16.70 0.001
ecodestination to friends

With respect to ecotourists’ satisfaction, one should bear in mind that all ecotours were
held in the off-season or shoulder season but never in this midst of the peak tourism season,
which on these islands tends to encompass the end of July, all of August, and the first half of
September. Meanwhile, weather factors did not feature in stakeholders’ responses in terms of

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