Experiential Value, Place Attachment, and Environmentally Responsible Behavior of Forest Health Tourism—A Case of China

Abstract

With the increasing concerns about the environmental issues of forest health tourism, the environmentally responsible behavior of tourists becomes the key to the sustainable development of forest health tourism. Therefore, the article takes experiential value as an entrance point, innovatively introduces the scenario of forest health tourism, and divides experiential value into the functional value, hedonic value and symbolic value. Then, a theoretical model of the experiential value of forest health tourism, two place perception concepts of place attachment, and environmentally responsible behavior is constructed. The research team assembled 498 valid questionnaires for the empirical investigation in the Fuzhou National Forest Park in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the theoretical hypotheses and to explore the cumulative driving effects of the experiential value and place attachment in forest health tourism on environmentally responsible behavior. The results showed that the experiential value of forest health tourism had a significant positive effect on the environmentally responsible behavior. It also had a significant positive effect on place attachment, which also strengthened the environmentally responsible behavior. In addition, place attachment is considered to be an important mediator of the effect of forest health tourism’s experiential value on the intention of environmentally responsible behavior. Place attachment is a more important element driving environmentally responsible behavior than the elements of the forest health tourism’s experiential value. Place attachment has a greater impact on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior than place identification. This highlights the importance of place attachment in influencing the environmentally responsible behavior of tourists. These results provide a useful theoretical basis and practical reference for promoting environmentally responsible behavior in forest health tourism.