Emotional intelligence: how it influences tourists’ environmentally responsible behaviour

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines how tourists’ emotional intelligence (EI) influences tourists’ environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB). Moreover, this study also proposes a more parsimonious scale to measure EI. The analysis of 395 responses revealed a 16-item (instead of 33-item) EI scale – where four dimensions appeared. The findings show the relationships of those dimensions of EI with the dimensions of ERB. Perception of emotion relating to self positively influences civil, physical and persuasive action but not financial action whereas perception of emotion relating to others positively influences only civil and persuasive action. The impact of other tourists’ EI dimensions on tourists’ ERB is also divergent. These findings leverage literature by offering a parsimonious EI scale and by exploring the relationships between tourists’ EI and the dimensions of tourists’ ERB, which suggest tourism providers for reinforcing specific EI dimensions to promote tourists’ ERB.