To Visit and Preserve an Ecotourism Destination? The Moderating Effect of the Sense of Responsibility
Tourists’ intention to visit a local destination and the awareness of preservation is one of the key factors that lead to sustainability. The engagement of tourists in ecotourism enables them to demonstrate a sense of responsibility in contributing to the development and preservation of a destination while having their vacation. The current study employed the Model of Goal-Oriented Behaviour (MGB) to predict tourist attitudes and sense of responsibility as a moderator to examine the relationship between personal behaviour intention. Questionnaire was utilised to collect responses from 200 respondents. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the proposed research model. The findings indicated that escape, hedonic and social interaction significantly influenced tourists’ attitudes toward ecotourism sites, and the sense of responsibility has moderated the relationships between the visitors’ intention to visit and preserve ecotourism destinations. The findings also stated that tourists’ intention to visit ecotourism sites was least significantly influenced by their attitudes, despite their attitudes to preserve ecotourism sites. The study is one of the few to investigate factors affecting the attitude of tourists in the context of ecotourism and utilised social responsibilities as moderators to study the intention to visit and to preserve. It provides new insight to the government sectors, communities, and other stakeholders regarding the motivations influencing the tourist intention to visit and preserve.
Keywords: ecotourism, tourist, visit, preserve, sense of responsibility