**6. Conclusions**

Encouraging tourists to recycle is arguably as important a task as encouraging people to recycle at home. Nevertheless, researchers have paid little attention to the former topic when the much greater extent of literature stemming from the latter is considered. For this reason, this study has raised important issues regarding the barriers to recycling at destination in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria. Most significantly, the research has questioned the excuses and barriers to recycling and how they di ffer between specific groups that di ffer in sociodemographic and situational characteristics. The survey concluded that the main obstacles to recycling fall into five categories: demands of relaxing (1), reluctances and oppositions (2), lack of information (3), lack of external benefits (4), inconvenience and nuisance (5). The findings indicate that gender, education, nationality, apartment category and frequency of visits play a significant role in recycling intentions. The results of this research have

contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of what should be considered to achieve a greater rate of recycling among tourists; to make recycling a tourist's personal lifestyle choice.

Nevertheless, of the five barriers, the most relevant are "*relaxation*", "*reluctance*" and "*lack of information*". Therefore, in order to ensure that there is a su fficient level of information about recycling at tourist destinations, it is advisable for the institutions that are responsible for the control of recycling to create a mobile application, pinpointing the benefits of recycling and providing useful tips on how to do it at a specific tourist destination. A negotiable alternative would be the accession to the scope of WasteApp, which already functions in 11 European cities [116,117]. Providing information about recycling to current and potential tourists through a convenient channel can be a meaningful solution for the increase of concern for recycling.

In addition, our results revealed that gender is a significant factor in explaining recycling behaviour at a tourist destination. Male tourists were found to refrain from recycling, due to "demands of relaxing" and "rest as excuses for not recycling", and "reluctances and oppositions". Therefore, tourism researchers and practitioners need to recognise the crucial role of gender in understanding the barriers to recycling at a tourist destination. In order to stimulate male tourists into exhibiting a pro-recycling behaviour, it is essential to pose recycling as an ease task fully compatible with relaxation, as well as implement special social marketing techniques suitable for reluctant target audiences, for example, the foot in the door, the face in the door and even the retirement of positive reinforcements. Similarly, it seems logical to provide the lower educated with more information about how to recycle, insofar as this represents the key inhibitor for this group.

Likewise, as locals, Germans and Scandinavians show a strong drive to recycle; one might sugges<sup>t</sup> that social marketers think of recruiting them as volunteers and block leaders to set an example, and thus encourage the other national groups to contribute. Needless to say, there is no point in arguing that recycling at the destination is only a top-down concern for the tourist's sake since the tourists strongly demand sustainable destinations.

Equally, while tourists argue a certain lack of information when their loyalty to the destination is low, they adduce a demand to relax and an expression of reluctance if their apartment category is either low or high but not mid-level. On this basis, the authorities should be aware that more e ffort is needed to facilitate recycling behaviour for less loyal tourists and those who spend their holidays in premium and low rate apartments.

In summary, the results of the research confirmed that there exist di fferences in recycling barriers depending on the sociodemographic and situational background of tourists. Given that the kerbside system is fully developed and well equipped in Gran Canaria, all the tourists' arguments are grounded in their beliefs and perceptions.

Finally, let us acknowledge the existence of a few limitations. First of all, this research was conducted among tourists in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria. Therefore, the sample does not perfectly represent all tourists to Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, or Spain as a whole. It means that there exists a concern related to the generalisation of the results. Therefore, future research should cover samples from more destinations. Secondly, despite there being a high level of homogeneity in terms of the recycling recovery infrastructure at this destination, there must be a wide range of di fferent circumstances a ffecting how easy it is to recycle for those who form the target audience. Therefore, we are far from a quasi-experiment setting in which the researcher can be aware of the external variables that potentially might be causing some biases in the questionnaire respondents. Thirdly, preliminary analyses consisting of normal tests; let us assume that the ANOVA groups do not follow a normal distribution, not even show a similar number of cases, and hence the obtained results are more representative of this particular destination than if they were potentially extrapolated to other places.

**Author Contributions:** While G.D.-M. has been engaged in all the tasks, N.V.-V. has made a significant contribution to the review of the literature, the conclusions and a wide range of formal tasks. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding, but the principal author is involved in the Soclimpact project. This project subject matter consists of fighting against Climate Change in the Islands and has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under gran<sup>t</sup> agreemen<sup>t</sup> No 776661.

**Acknowledgments:** We feel grateful for the support and help in performing the survey by a team of over 100 devoted students of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
