Promoting sustainable tourism destinations: support and its role in tourist environmentally responsible behaviour

Tourist environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB) is vital for ensuring the sustainable future of tourism destinations. Nevertheless, the drivers of tourist ERB have not been fully investigated. This study examines the potential role of destination support in eliciting tourist ERB. A model comprising destination support, norms, tourists' public self-awareness and ERB is constructed based on the social information processing framework. The questionnaire data of 440 tourists in the Dinghushan National Nature Reserve in China were collected. Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the data and test the model. The results show that: (1) Destination support is an important precursor of tourist ERB, and (2) Destination support exerts positive impacts on tourist ERB not only directly but also indirectly through personal and social environmental norms. Further, a hierarchical regression analysis reveals that tourists' public self-awareness moderates the direct impacts of destination support and personal norms on tourist ERB. It should be noted that the moderating effects differ across destination support and personal norms, with tourists' public self-awareness strengthening the effect of destination support on tourist ERB but weakening the effect of personal norms. These findings enrich the current theoretical research by highlighting the antecedent role of destination support in motivating tourist ERB. From a practical perspective, the present study suggests that tourism destinations should maintain a supportive atmosphere to foster tourist ERB, especially when tourists possess a high level of public self-awareness.