Abstract
PurposeThis study examines the mediating role of motivation on outdoor recreation on the attitude–behavior and social marketing–behavior linkages. The paper scrutinizes the moderating impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) risk perception in transforming individual motivation on nature-based outdoor recreation into environmentally responsible behavior.Design/methodology/approachData were collected and conducted in Vietnamese National Parks. The dataset consists of 900 valid responses by domestic travelers. The research was operationalized using empirical data and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) and SPSS PROCESS analysis.FindingsFirst, this study confirms that outdoor recreation activities and business's marketing on social networks tend to transform into support for individual behavior in terms of protecting environment and having responsibility for environment. Second, the current paper also represents the academic efforts to contribute to outdoor recreation literature by explaining the current global problem that has caused serious upheaval in global society as well as individual life. The findings not only confirmed the mediating role of nature-based outdoor recreation motivation between attitude and behavior, but also examined the moderating effect of COVID-19 risk perception in the relationship between motivation and behavior.Originality/valueThe findings indicate the significant association of social marketing, environment attitudes, outdoor recreation motivation and environmentally responsible behavior. The findings not only confirmed the mediating role of nature-based outdoor recreation motivation between attitude and behavior, but also examined the moderating effect of COVID-19 risk perception in the relationship between motivation and behavior. These results provide key insights about examining visitors' behavior for environment protection during future infectious disease outbreaks.
Highlights
It has been widely observed that outdoor recreation is becoming increasingly popular in research (Margaryan and Fredman, 2017; Nordh et al, 2017; Komossa et al, 2020)
Given the implications of social marketing explained above, this study proposes that outdoor recreation motivation mediates the relationship between social marketing and consumers’ Environmentally responsible behavior (ERB)
The results show that the impact of COVID-19 risk perception enhances the relationship between outdoor recreation motivation and ERB
Summary
It has been widely observed that outdoor recreation is becoming increasingly popular in research (Margaryan and Fredman, 2017; Nordh et al, 2017; Komossa et al, 2020). Naturebased activities, which are considered as a form of outdoor recreation, have recently attracted the increasing interest of both academics and practitioners (Melly and Hanrahan, 2020). The objective of developing nature-based outdoor recreation is to improve public health and environmental protection (Marasinghe et al, 2021; Høyem, 2020). Outdoor recreation providers need to develop strategies to minimize the losses resulting from the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the future (Humagain and Singleton, 2021). It is important to understand the impact of factors on the environmentally responsible behavior towards outdoor recreation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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