How Does Tourist Experience Affect Environmentally Responsible Behavior?

Mountain tourism is an important part of China’s tourism market. Tourist behavior is essential to environmental protection and the sustainability of destinations. This paper takes environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) as an important tourist behavior. It breaks down the dimensions of the traditional tourism experience, such as hedonism, participation, novelty; or hedonism, involvement, novelty, local culture; and analyzes the influence of entertainment, education, aesthetics, and escape on place attachment from the nature of the tourism experience. It then incorporates nature bonding into the system of place attachment and analyzes the relationship with place attachment, tourist experiences, and ERBs in Qianshan Mountain, a 5A scenic spot in China. Partial least squares structural (PLS) equation modeling is used to analyze the data of 410 valid questionnaires. The results found that tourist experiences affect ERBs through place attachment. Nature bonding is the key factor of ERBs. The results are as follows: escape and aesthetics influence ERB through nature bonding; entertainment influences general ERB through place identity and nature bonding; education has a positive impact on general ERB through place identity and place dependence. Entertainment and education experiences partially affect place attachment. Place identity and nature bonding affect general ERB, but particular ERB is related only to nature bonding. The internal psychological mechanism of ERB is identified. In addition, mountain landscapes can be designed from the perspective of entertainment experiences, landscape aesthetic, leisure atmosphere and educational functions, so that tourists can spontaneously pay attention to environmental issues and engage in the practical activities of environmental protection.

Critical Influences on Responsible Tourism Behavior and the Mediating Role of Ambivalent Emotions

This research employed a behavioral model to confirm and elucidate the critical influence of place attachment, destination involvement, and ambivalent emotion on responsible tourism behaviors. A total of 415 questionnaires were collected from tourists visiting Penghu Island in Taiwan. Following data analysis using structural equation modeling, the results suggested that place attachment, destination involvement, and ambivalent emotion critically impact responsible tourism behaviors, and that place attachment is negatively related to ambivalent emotion. In addition, ambivalent emotion was found to mediate the relationship between place attachment and responsible tourism behaviors. Finally, implications for the promotion of sustainable tourism development were thoughtfully provided based on these findings.

The Future of Rurality: Place Attachment among Young Inhabitants of Two Rural Communities of Mediterranean Central Chile

Rural livelihoods are under threat, not only from climate change and soil erosion but also because young people in rural areas are increasingly moving to urbanized areas, seeking employment and education opportunities. In the Valparaiso region of Chile, megadrought, soil degradation, and industrialization are driving young people to leave agricultural and livestock activities. In this study, our main objective was to identify the factors influencing young people living in two rural agricultural communities (Valle Hermoso and La Vega). We conducted 90 online surveys of young people aged 13–24 to evaluate their interest in living in the countryside (ILC). We assessed the effect of community satisfaction, connectedness to nature, and social valuation of rural livelihoods on the ILC. The results show that young people were more likely to stay living in the countryside when they felt satisfied and safe in their community, felt a connection with nature, and were surrounded by people who enjoyed the countryside. These results highlight the relevance of promoting place attachment and the feeling of belonging within the rural community. Chilean rural management and local policies need to focus on rural youth and highlight the opportunities that the countryside provides for them.

The missing intangibles: nature’s contributions to human wellbeing through place attachment and social capital

Communities in socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes are aging and depopulating. While longstanding interdependence of humans and nature in such areas holds crucial hints for sustainable development, they continue to be undervalued by existing economic frameworks. We suspect omission of non-material nature’s contributions to people (NCPs) as a possible reason for this undervaluation and focus on the intangible aspects of human–nature relationships: people’s direct and emotional attachment to their land and interrelationships between close-knit human communities and a thriving natural environment. Field observations on Sado Island, Japan, and literature reviews informed our hypothesis that perceived nature, conceptual human–nature relationships, place attachment, and social relationships contribute to subjective wellbeing. Structural equation modeling of island-wide questionnaire responses confirmed our hypothesis. Nature contributes to wellbeing by enhancing place attachment and social relationships; ecocentrism contributes to greater values of perceived nature. Free-response comments elucidated how local foods and close interpersonal relationships enhance residents’ happiness and good quality of life, as well as how aging and depopulation impact their sense of loneliness. These results lend empirical support to the understanding of human–nature interdependency in socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes. In assessing their value to local residents and society at large, greater consideration should be given to intangible aspects of human–nature relationships and quality of life.

Belonging to Green

Sarajevo's natural layout is extensively green as it covers large rural and natural areas. The city struggles with an insufficient urban layout in terms of environmental quality. Through a top-down approach, this study investigates the user's perception of ‘green' and examines the environmental attributes of place attachment in the case of Sarajevo. The semi-structured study is based on online surveys with experts and in-depth interviews with residents and applies a reframed model of place attachment which provides both a quantitative and qualitative translation of, among other aspects, environmental factors. Within this framework, the research presents a recap of Sarajevo's environmental experiences and focuses on lessons learned regarding the post-war urban development in the environmental context of the city.

CAN SOCIAL MEDIA BE A TOOL FOR INCREASING TOURISTS’ ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR?

For the sustainable development of a tourism destination, environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) is a vital issue. This study developed an implicated model based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework showing the usages of social media by tourists regarded as a stimulus; environmental awareness, and place attachment generated from using social media regarded as an organism; and tourists' ERB thereby bringing behavioral intension regarded as responses. The integrated tourists' ERB model was experimentally tested using survey data from 467 Bangladeshi tourists by SEM-based methodology. The study found that social media has a beneficial effect on environmental awareness and place attachment, negatively impacting ERB. Furthermore, environmental awareness and place attachment has a favorable impact on ERB. This article discusses theoretical discoveries as well as practical consequences.