Does a National Park Enhance the Environment-Friendliness of Tourists as an Ecotourism Destination?

Eunseong Jeong,Alan Dixon Brown,Minyoung Son,Taesoo Lee,Sara Choi

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168321

Abstract

Governments have designated national parks to protect the natural environment against ecosystem destruction and improve individuals’ emotional and recreational life. National parks enhance environment-friendly awareness by conducting ecotourism activities and individuals with environment-friendly awareness are inclined to continue to visit national parks as ecotourism destinations. The New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) is a widely used measure of environmental concern, suitable for measuring the environment-friendly attitude and revisit intention of visitors of national parks. Therefore, the study carried out structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationship between the NEP, national park conservation consciousness and environment-friendly behavioral intention. Based on the results, an implication is presented to induce national parks to cultivate individual environment-friendly awareness and for visitors to pursue sustainable, environment-friendly tourism behavior. The findings indicate that national parks are to expand educational programs and facilities for eco-tourists visiting national parks to maintain a balanced relationship between themselves and nature and have a strong environmental awareness to preserve the natural environment.

Highlights

Over the past several decades, the tourism industry has generated positive ripple effects, such as job creation, regional economic revitalization and expansion of social infrastructure in tourist destinations [1]
Studies identified that the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) had a significant effect on environment conservation consciousness [70,71]; the NEP had a significant effect on environment-friendly behavioral intention [72,73,74]
As individual tourism activities increase, the destruction of the natural ecosystem by tourism development has led to the emergence of an alternative form of tourism, ecotourism, it does not perfectly preserve the natural environment

Summary

Introduction

Over the past several decades, the tourism industry has generated positive ripple effects, such as job creation, regional economic revitalization and expansion of social infrastructure in tourist destinations [1]. It has resulted in negative effects, such as conflict between tourists and local residents, crime and gentrification [2]. Policies and programs have been proposed to minimize the destruction of the natural environment by tourism development. Ecotourism has emerged and is frequently mentioned by tourism studies as a vehicle to minimize the damage to the natural environment caused by tourism development. Instances have occurred of ecotourism deviating from its original purpose of responsible tourism, whereby tourists actively participate to strengthen environmental awareness and protect the global environment and endangered flora and fauna, and degenerating into mass tourism [3,4]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion