IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/anture/v59y2016icp30-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring environmentally sustainable tourist behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Juvan, Emil
  • Dolnicar, Sara

Abstract

This study reveals substantial variation in estimates of the proportion of tourists behaving in an environmentally sustainable manner. Results indicate that the variation is explained by (1) definitions of environmentally sustainable tourist behaviour including—or not including—intent to protect the environment and (2) the use of either unprompted open-ended or prompted closed questions. The latter are associated with respondent’s tendencies to respond in a socially desirable way, thus artificially inflating the occurrence of environmentally sustainable tourist behaviour by as much as 74 per cent. Unprompted open-ended questions are not susceptible to social desirability bias. Future studies into environmentally sustainable tourist behaviour should measure actual observed behaviour. If this is not possible, unprompted open-ended approaches are recommended.

Suggested Citation

  • Juvan, Emil & Dolnicar, Sara, 2016. "Measuring environmentally sustainable tourist behaviour," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 30-44.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:anture:v:59:y:2016:i:c:p:30-44
    DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2016.03.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016073831630041X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.annals.2016.03.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hannarong SHAMSUB & Louis LEBEL, 2012. "Identifying Tourists With Sustainable Behaviour A Study Of International Tourists To Thailand," Journal of Advanced Research in Management, ASERS Publishing, vol. 3(1), pages 26-40.
    2. Lee, Tsung Hung & Jan, Fen-Hauh & Yang, Chung-Cheng, 2013. "Conceptualizing and measuring environmentally responsible behaviors from the perspective of community-based tourists," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 454-468.
    3. Fisher, Robert J, 1993. "Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(2), pages 303-315, September.
    4. Han, Heesup & Hsu, Li-Tzang (Jane) & Sheu, Chwen, 2010. "Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to green hotel choice: Testing the effect of environmental friendly activities," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 325-334.
    5. Noah J. Goldstein & Robert B. Cialdini & Vladas Griskevicius, 2008. "A Room with a Viewpoint: Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 472-482, March.
    6. Juvan, Emil & Dolnicar, Sara, 2014. "The attitude–behaviour gap in sustainable tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 76-95.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tae-Im Han, 2018. "Determinants of Organic Cotton Apparel Purchase: A Comparison of Young Consumers in the U.S.A. and South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.
    2. Kiatkawsin, Kiattipoom & Han, Heesup, 2017. "Young travelers' intention to behave pro-environmentally: Merging the value-belief-norm theory and the expectancy theory," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 76-88.
    3. Maria-Ana Georgescu & Emilia Herman, 2020. "Are Young People Ready to Have a Pro-Environmental Sustainable Behaviour as Tourists? An Investigation of Towel Reuse Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-20, November.
    4. Cozzio, Claudia & Volgger, Michael & Taplin, Ross & Woodside, Arch G., 2020. "Nurturing tourists’ ethical food consumption: Testing the persuasive strengths of alternative messages in a natural hotel setting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 268-279.
    5. Alessia Acampora & Michele Preziosi & Maria Claudia Lucchetti & Roberto Merli, 2022. "The Role of Hotel Environmental Communication and Guests’ Environmental Concern in Determining Guests’ Behavioral Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-23, September.
    6. Han, Heesup & Hyun, Sunghyup Sean, 2018. "What influences water conservation and towel reuse practices of hotel guests?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 87-97.
    7. Shiwei Shen & Marios Sotiriadis & Qing Zhou, 2020. "Could Smart Tourists Be Sustainable and Responsible as Well? The Contribution of Social Networking Sites to Improving Their Sustainable and Responsible Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, February.
    8. Atefeh Dadvar & Krushna Mahapatra & Jörgen Forss, 2021. "Water Use Behavior in a Multicultural Urban Area in Sweden," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-15, August.
    9. M. Rosario González‐Rodríguez & Iis Tussyadiah, 2022. "Sustainable development in nature‐based destinations. The social dilemma of an environmental policy," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 580-594, August.
    10. Yan Gao & Lilin Zou & Alastair M. Morrison & Fanglin Wu, 2021. "Do Situations Influence the Environmentally Responsible Behaviors of National Park Visitors? Survey from Shennongjia National Park, Hubei Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, August.
    11. Juvan, Emil & Dolnicar, Sara, 2014. "The attitude–behaviour gap in sustainable tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 76-95.
    12. María Ángeles Plaza-Mejía & Nuria Porras-Bueno & David Flores-Ruiz, 2020. "The Jungle of Support: What Do We Really Mean When We Say “Residents’ Support”?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-27, September.
    13. Dolnicar, Sara, 2020. "Designing for more environmentally friendly tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. Heesup Han & Myong Jae Lee & Wansoo Kim, 2018. "Promoting towel reuse behaviour in guests: A water conservation management and environmental policy in the hotel industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(8), pages 1302-1312, December.
    15. Lee, Hae Young & Bonn, Mark A. & Reid, Earl L. & Kim, Woo Gon, 2017. "Differences in tourist ethical judgment and responsible tourism intention: An ethical scenario approach," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 298-307.
    16. Gerhard Reese & Eva A. Junge, 2017. "Keep on Rockin’ in a (Plastic-)Free World: Collective Efficacy and Pro-Environmental Intentions as a Function of Task Difficulty," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-13, February.
    17. Sakshi Goyal & Praveen Goyal, 2024. "The evolution of pro‐environmental behavior research in three decades using bibliometric analysis," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 4133-4153, September.
    18. Francesco Testa & Silvia Sarti & Marco Frey, 2019. "Are green consumers really green? Exploring the factors behind the actual consumption of organic food products," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 327-338, February.
    19. Birau, Mia M. & Faure, Corinne, 2018. "It is easy to do the right thing: Avoiding the backfiring effects of advertisements that blame consumers for waste," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 102-117.
    20. Xi Li & Runzhe Yu & Xinwei Su, 2021. "Environmental Beliefs and Pro-Environmental Behavioral Intention of an Environmentally Themed Exhibition Audience: The Mediation Role of Exhibition Attachment," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:anture:v:59:y:2016:i:c:p:30-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/annals-of-tourism-research/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.