How sport tourism experience influences daily pro-environmental behaviour: the role of eco-friendly reputation and personal norm

ABSTRACT

Tourism destinations are often considered vulnerable to environmental destruction due to the negative environmental impact that can be generated by tourist activities. Unfortunately, tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) has been considered problematic even in outdoor activity-related tourist destinations, despite the close connection between tourists and the environment. Hence, it is necessary to tackle: what are the psychological processes that govern tourists’ PEB? Drawing on multiple cognitive psychological theories, we examined how sport tourists’ experiences spill-over to their daily PEB. Data were collected among tourists who visited Shiga Kogen Mountain Resort in Japan (n = 178). While testing five hypotheses using the two-wave time-lagged data collection method, it revealed that eco-friendly reputation and personal norm have a significant effect on the destination PEB while also spills over positively to the daily PEB. Additionally, there was no significant mediation effect, however, the total effect was both significantly positive for eco-friendly reputation and personal norm. Overall, the current research can contribute to the literature on sustainable tourism by illuminating the relationships among environmental and personal factors in shaping tourists’ PEB and highlighting the potential long-term destination experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Personal norms
• eco-friendly reputation
• daily pro-environmental behaviour
• spill-over effect
• time-lagged study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists [Grant Number 22K17701 & 23K16732].

Notes on contributors

Rei Yamashita

Rei Yamashita is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences at Toyo University, Japan. Dr. Yamashita's research interest is focused on how sport could solve social issues. Particularly, she focused on sport events, outdoor sport, and sport spectatorships.

Yunfan Wu

Yunfan Wu is a Doctoral student at Waseda University, Japan. Her research focuses on the intersection of exercise and mental health, particularly in the context of outdoor sport. She investigates how outdoor sports impact consumers' psychology and behavior.

Shintaro Sato

Shintaro Sato is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Sport Sciences at Waseda University, Japan. He has been studying the relationships between sport and well-being. In particular, he focuses on sport events and outdoor sport as research contexts. Dr. Sato serves as the head of Sport & Entertainment Management Lab.