Facilitation And Inertia: A Study On The Impact Of Interaction Level And Type On Tourists' Pro-environmental Behavio

In recent years,along with the development of tourism and the phenomenon of destination sinking,the problems caused by environmental damage by tourists have become more prominent and the corresponding difficulties in managing the destination environment are increasing.With limited tourism resources and unlimited tourist demand,problems between tourists and destinations are inevitable,but dangerous if left unchecked.As stated in the famous tragedy of the commons principle proposed by the American scholar Harding,if tourists are allowed to pursue their own hedonistic maximization and focus on satisfying their own tourism needs,while weakening the implementation of altruistic behaviors such as pro-environmental behaviors,then the environmental problems of the scenic spots will also intensify and even affect the sustainability of the scenic spots.Therefore,the stimulation of pro-environmental behaviors of tourists is crucial.The pro-environmental behavior of tourists has,to a certain extent,responded to the national call for ecological civilization and made tourism development more sustainable.Nowadays,in the context of regional tourism,the environment in which tourists travel is more closely integrated with the environment in which the hosts of the destination operate,and the contact between tourists and the hosts of the destination is more frequent during the tourism process.In view of the fact that previous studies have pointed out that host-guest interactions have an impact on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors,this paper firstly focuses on the interaction behaviors between tourists and their hosts,such as local residents and tourism professionals,in the process of destination tourism,and illustrates the important impact of interactions on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors by classifying hostguest interactions according to their high and low levels.Second,through literature review,it is found that previous studies are not yet unified as to whether interaction has a positive or negative effect on the implementation of altruistic behaviors such as pro-environmental behaviors of tourists.Therefore,this study then discusses and unifies previous studies by introducing the social facilitation and social inertia theories in organizational behavior,placing the subject-guest interaction behaviors in two types of interactions-The present study discusses and unifies previous research by introducing the theories of social facilitation and social inertia in organizational behavior and situating the host-guest interaction behavior in two types of interactions-service-based and social interaction.In other words,this paper focuses on how host-guest interactions have different effects on tourists’ pro-environmental behavior in different interaction type contexts,respectively.This study was conducted through two experiments that aimed to investigate how the level and type of interaction affects the pro-environmental behavior of visitors and what the psychological mechanisms are.Experiment 1 was conducted mainly in a visitor dining context and found that there was an interaction effect between the level and type of interaction,which influenced each other and had two different positive and negative effects on visitors’ willingness to engage in proenvironmental behaviors;Experiment 2 was conducted mainly in a visitor accommodation context,and in addition to further testing the interaction effect of Experiment 1,a mediating effect test was also conducted in Experiment 2,which showed that the positive effect of host-guest interaction on pro-environmental behaviors effects that positively affect pro-environmental behavior occur mainly through the mediating variable of emotional solidarity,and those that negatively affect occur mainly through the mediating variable of psychological privilege.The findings of this paper include:(1)The effect of interaction level on willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior depends on the type of interaction,i.e.,the effect of interaction level varies with the type of interaction.(2)The interaction effect between the level of interaction and the type of interaction is significant,and there is a positive or negative two-sided effect on the willingness of pro-environmental behavior under different types.(3)The effect of interaction level on visitors’ willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior is two-sided,and will be positively mediated by emotional solidarity on the one hand and negatively mediated by psychological privilege on the other.This study focuses on the dynamic contextual factor of host-guest interaction,enriches previous studies that only positively influence host-guest interaction,applies the two organizational behavior theories of social facilitation and inertia effects to the tourism field,explores the relationship between the degree and type of interaction,emotional solidarity,psychological privilege and tourists’ willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior,and constructs a theoretical model in which interaction generates both positive and negative paths to proenvironmental behavior.It expands the research and role of host-guest interaction in tourism field in previous studies,and provides certain practical guidance suggestions for destination managers to adopt environmental management measures,hoping that this can provide some insights into the sustainability of the destination.