Self-determined travel motivation and environmentally responsible behaviour of Chinese visitors to national forest protected areas in South China

Abstract

Our study investigates the self-determined travel motivations of Chinese visitors and explores the association between their motivations and environmentally responsible attitudes and behaviours. Onsite questionnaire surveys were administered in two national forest protected areas in southern China: Nanling National Forest Park (NNFP) and Dinghushan National Nature Reserve (DNNR). In total, 402 Chinese visitors were surveyed in the two forest protected areas. The results show that intrinsic and extrinsic travel motivations were equally important to visitors and that both types of motivation were significantly associated with the visitors’ environmental attitudes and environmentally responsible behaviours. The findings suggest that travel motivations, environmental attitudes and environmentally responsible behaviours vary between Chinese visitors and their Western counterparts. The findings offer significant insights for the visitor management of protected areas in mainland China and will provide a good reference for protected areas worldwide because Chinese tourists account for a high proportion of overseas visitors.