Key impact factors of visitors’ environmentally responsible behaviour: personality traits or interpretive services? A case study of Beijing’s Yuyuantan Urban Park, China

ABSTRACT

The environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB) facilitates the sustainability of tourism destinations. This study aims to identify the key impact factors to promote visitors’ ERB in urban park and examine the impact mechanism. A total of 567 visitors were surveyed in Beijing’s Yuyuantan Urban Park. Structural equation modelling results indicate that personality traits are the most important factors that affect visitors’ ERB, while the effect of how satisfaction with interpretive services plays upon visitors’ ERB using place attachment as a mediator. Openness traits positively affect satisfaction with experiential services and general behaviour. Additionally, implications in urban park management are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmentally responsible behaviour
• personality traits
• satisfaction with interpretive service
• place attachment
• structural equation modelling
• Beijing

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Kang Zhao, leader of the Management Office of Beijing Yuyuantan Park, for providing us access to their sites, the visitors who participated in our study, and those who have contributed their time and invaluable suggestions to this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [grant number 2017FY101303], [grant number 2017FY101304], [grant number 2017FY101300]; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2018M631559].