Increasing demand and highly varied nature of visitors have imposed great challenges on the auto-camping
grounds’ planners and managers, who are tasked with the mission to provide accessible quality outdoor recreation
experience and maintain the ecological integrity. Understanding tourists’ environmental attitudes and commitments
toward natural resource management for social and environmental sustainability may facilitate managers’ ability to
react to this challenge, thus the present study suggests a segmentation approach based on the ECOS model and aims
at profiling auto-campers in South Korea to define the type of opportunities for ecotourism sustainability which
auto-camping grounds may offer.
A factor-clustering method identified three distinctive segments that are named "Eco-generalists", "Intermediates"
and "Eco-specialists". The largest group "Eco-specialists" are indicative of the "hard" end of the ecotourism spectrum
showing a low opinion of "amenities" and "socializing". The environmental attitudes of "Intermediates" are as strong
as "Eco-specialists" toward "conservation" and "control", but less evident in other eco-aspects such as "socializing".
The response pattern of "Eco-generalists" is strongly indicative of the "soft" end, suggesting that auto-campers in this
group have a general level of eco-oriented perceptions and attitudes toward the auto-camping experience.
This study may be the first attempt to incorporate the concept of ecotourism into auto-camping activities in South
Korea. Results shown are believed to help auto-camping managers and market planners get aware of a distinct
eco-based profile of Korean auto-campers and thus aid effective resource management.
Key words : ecotourism, auto-camping, resource management framework, environmental attitudes, ECOS.