Tourists' Environmentally Responsible Behavior And Its Driving Factors

Over the years,under the influence of the traditional extensive tourism development concept,tourism destination has payed more emphasis on the material aspects of tourism development and construction,then triggered a series of serious environmental problems.It can't solve environmental problems at its source and restrict the sustainable tourism development because of the neglect of construction and improvement of the non-material aspects of management mechanism.The essence of sustainable development is the harmonious relationship between human and environment,wherein "human factor" is essential.Tourist is one of the key main parts of tourist activity,and its environmentally responsible behavior is not only important part of tourism deatination's ecological civilization construction,but also an effective solution to the ecological dilemma of tourism development which finally determines the sustainable development of tourism deatination.In academic circles,domestic and foreign quantitative research about the environmental behavior applied in the context of tourism is insuffcient and still in its infancy,the theoretical system structure is not fully developed,the lack of relevant research results leads to limited guidance on tourist behavior management,thus enhancing research about tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving mechanism undoubtedly has important theoretical and practical significance.Integrated use of multidisciplinary classical theory such as environmental psychology,environmental behavior,tourism geography,summarized on the basis of domestic and foreign research results about environmentally responsible behavior,based on the general theoretical framework of environmental attitude-environmental behavior intention-environmentally responsible behavior,argued on the respective driving variables and their intrinsic relationship with tourists' environmentally responsible behavior,the acticle constructs theoretical model and corresponding measurement system about tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors,then carry out the empirical research in case of Taiwan island.With the EXCEL,SPSS,AMOS statistical software,using a variety of research methods like the mean value analysis,variance analysis,factor analysis,structural equation modeling,the acticle explores the overall level and characteristics differences between groups of tourists'environmentally responsible behavior and its six major driving factors of Taiwan island,and then identify key demographic factors resulting in the differences,figure out the inherent complexity between tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors,finally deeply analyze the complicated mental activity mechanism of environmental cognition,attitude,emotion,will.Specific results are as follows:(1)Taiwan island tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors were evaluated,the results is successively nature-based tourism motivation(5.38),environmentally responsible behavior(5.31),environmental attitude(5.19),scenic spot's enviormental quality(4.91),environmental behavior intention(4.81),scenic spot's environmental policy(4.60),environmental knowledge(4.56),Taiwan island tourist is not in high degree of recognition to the scenic spot's environment policy formulation,and there's an inconsistencies between environmentally responsible behavior,environmental attitude,environmental behavior intention,then analyze the possible causes of this form of inconsistency;(2)The article conducts a research on different impact on tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors by seven major demographic factors like gender,age,education,occupation,average monthly household income,hotel,source of tourist.The results show that gender,age,education,occupation,average monthly household income,hotel are six significant factors which make characteristics differences for environmental attitude;Education plays a significant role on environmental knowledge;None of the key factors impact nature-based tourism motivation are recognized;Source of tourist significantly affect scenic spot's environmental quality perceived by tourists;There are significant differences in the cognition of scenic spot's environmental policy among tourist groups from different source or different age;Environmental behavior intention exists significant differences among groups from different source;Age and occupation are two significant factors of tourists'environmentally responsible behavior.Whereby to further explore the formed causes of characteristics differences between groups;(3)The revised theoretical model(Figure 5-7)of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors better reveals specific ways six major driving factors impact tourists' environmentally responsible behavior.There's a direct weak positive correlation between environmental attitude and tourists' environmentally responsible behavior,but also environmental attitude achieves response to environmentally responsible behavior through a significant positive effect on environmental behavior intention;Nature-based tourism motivation not only puts positive impact on environmentally responsible behavior with significant positive effect by environmental attitude,but also exsits indirect positive impact on environmentally responsible behavior through environmental behavior intention;Environmental knowledge does not directly act on environmentally responsible behavior,mainly puts an indirect effect on environmentally responsible behavior and other driving factors through a significant positive effect on environmental attitude;There's no correlation between scenic spot's environmental policy,scenic spot's environmental quality and environmental behavior intention,they directly play a weak role in environmentally responsible behavior;Analysing the intrinsic relationship between environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors,it finds out:environmental attitude,environmental behavior intention as two key mediator variables on environmentally responsible behavior,they regulate internal relations between remaining driving factors and environmentally responsible behavior,confirming the rationality of linear response mode of environmental attitude-environmental behavior intention-environmentally responsible behavior;Model's independent variables can explain 26.9%of the variance of environmental attitude,31.8%of the variance of environmental behavior intention and 77.5%of the variance of environmentally responsibible behavior,showing the entire model has good explanatory power;(4)An in-depth analysis of inherent formation mechanism of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior found that:the driving factors of environmentally responsibible behavior can be summarized in two types of personal factors and situational factors.Personal factors include environmental knowledge,environmental attitude,nature-based tourism motivation,environmental behavior intention which are related to tourists' mental factors of environmental cognition,attitude,emotion,will.Situational factors include scenic spot's environmental quality,scenic spot's environmental policy which are related to tourism destination's external factors of scenarios,system;Accordingly,the formation of environmentally responsible behavior can be divided into two personal factors process and situational factors process,there is a complex intertwined relationship between the personal factors process which can not completely separate out.Personal factors process has played a leading role in the formation of environmentally responsible behavior and existed both a direct and indirect impact on it with a greater degree of influence.However the situational factors process is only play a direct role in environmentally responsible behavior with little degree of influence.Specifically,environmental knowledge is not sufficient to direct the fomation and implementation of environmental behavior,but the total effect reachs 0.299 of the indirect impact on environmentally responsible behavior;environmental attitude influences environmentally responsible behavior through direct and indirect ways,and the overall effect achieve 0.576,wherein the direct effect is only 0.179,indicating that environmental attitude has limited direct transfer control capability on environmentally responsible behavior;Nature-based tourism motivation directly or indirectly stimulates tourists' environmentally responsible behavior,and the overall effect is 0.310;Althrough environmental behavior intention still stay in mental activity,it most likey transfer to the actual behavior under favorable integrated conditions,and the overall effect is 0.704;Scenic spot's environmental policy and scenic spot's environmental quality act directly on tourists' actual environmental behavior.There is no indirect impact,and the overall effect respectively reach 0.105 and-0.105.Theoretical and empirical study of environmentally responsible behavior under the adaption in tourism context is a relatively new field of study,this acticle is carried out an useful exploration and research,that will provides a new way of thinking to expand multi-disciplinary,multi-angle research vision for tourism researchers while enriching the theoretical study basis of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior.This acticle has made progress which is as follows:(1)It systermatically reviews the theoretical basis,concepts,and research progress at home and abroad of environmentally responsible behavioral research,and build a general theoretical framework and corresponding measurement scale of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving based on general theorectical framework of environmet behavior.With the exemplary research of Taiwan island tourist,it enriches the revised empirical research of enviromental behavior applied to tourism situation,and completes theoretical system and methodology of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior;(2)Taking Taiwan island as an example,we conduct the overall level and characteristic differences between groups of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors,and verify the feasibility of model of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior and its driving factors,then explore inherent complex relationship between tourists'environmentally responsible behavior and its six driving factors,which not only expand the scope of a deep understanding of the formation and implementation of Taiwan island tourists'environmentally responsible behavior for mainland,but also provides direct comparative results and operative theoretical framework for a comparative study facing to cross-strait tourists(3)Based on effect analysis between constructs applied by structural equation model,the acticle deeply analyzes the internal formation mechanism of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior,and proposes the driving mechanism can be divided into personal factors process and situational factors process of two sequential progressive,interdependent,interpenetrative process.With deep insight into driving mechanism of tourists' environmentally responsible behavior,it provides a scientific basis on promoting the non-material aspects of the management of tourists' environmental behavior,building ecological civilization of tourism destination,achieving sustainable development of tourism destination.