Agnes Lecompte, a lecturer in France at Université Bretagne Sud, specialises in marketing and consumer behaviour. She conducted various research works on sustainable development, mainly with a focus on the consumer. Two projects led in partnership with professional actors were on sustainable tourism (greening of hotels, management of destination in an environmental manner).

On Thursday 7 June Agnes presented the following seminar:

Protecting the environment of a destination with the help of its “users”: what differences between locals and tourists? (Work in progress)

Following a rapid introduction to her research work, she outlined some results of a study conducted in a French tourist destination, on the west coast: The Gavres-Quiberon coastline (30km of beaches and sand dunes).

Quantitative data were collected on 500 “users” of the area which enabled a study of the differences between the four  types of visitors of the coastline: residents, tourists, excursionists and secondary-home owners.

In order to help local managers better understand visitor profiles, the differences of three concepts were explored: place meanings, place attachment and protection environment behaviour.

Results revealed the important role of residents in the protection of the nature-based area and the ambiguous role of secondary home owners.

Agnes is a visiting researcher at GIFT from 28 May to 29 June.