How do personal values drive tourist engagement in ecotourism: analysis with SEM-ANN approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study uses Schwartz’s value theory to investigate the influence of personal values (self-transcendence, conservation, and openness-to-change) on tourists’ engagement (community and psychological engagement) in ecotourism. The study also explores the moderating role of social-media travel community groups on engagement behavior. We adopted a multi-analytical approach using Structural Equation Modelling and Artificial Neural Networks to test the hypothesized model. The findings show that conservation and openness-to-change significantly influenced tourist engagement, and social-media travel community groups have a significant moderating impact on tourists’ psychological engagement. This study contributes to ecotourism literature by exploring the significant influence of personal values on different types of tourist engagement in the ecotourism context.