Ecological culture has a low-carbon attribute, which coincides with the concepts of energy conservation and emission reduction in low-carbon tourism. Analyzing the differences in the public perception of the two is of great significance for achieving the carbon neutral goal of tourism. Firstly, the views of nature, equality and ecology in ecological culture, as well as the cognition and participation willingness for low-carbon tourism were identified by using the principal component analysis method. Secondly, all samples were divided into four types of ecological culture cognition: sufficient, relatively sufficient, general and poorer, by the K-means clustering method. Thirdly, significant differences in the low-carbon tourism cognition among different types were revealed by using the ANOVA method. Finally, the influences of the main demographic characteristics on the low-carbon tourism cognition were analyzed. This analysis showed that gender, age, education level and income level had significant differences in some aspects of low-carbon tourism cognition and participation willingness, especially education level. On this basis, several corresponding strategies were put forward for managing the cognitive differences of the different types, which could contribute to the realization of the carbon neutral vision of tourism.