Study on the influence path of public participation in marine ecotourism under the perspective of conspicuous consumption - Analysis of fsQCA based on VBN theory

Abstract

Marine ecological tourism has become a popular topic in recent years, and the public's conspicuous consumption behavior is also a hot topic studied by many scholars. How to explore and stimulate the public's conspicuous consumption behavior in marine ecological tourism is an important issue that we need to address. Based on the “value-belief-norm” (VBN) theory and using the fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method, this article analyzes 462 valid samples collected through a questionnaire to explore whether the combination of VBN theory's conditional elements affects the public's conspicuous consumption behavior in marine ecological tourism. The study found that the path of public conspicuous consumption behavior has the characteristics of “different paths leading to the same destination,” that is, the combination of conditional elements from different dimensions can stimulate the goal of public conspicuous consumption behavior, and a single-dimensional conditional element is not a necessary condition to increase public conspicuous consumption behavior. Environmental values, such as biosphere values and altruistic values, significantly affect the public's conspicuous consumption behavior.