The effects of environmental empathy and sustainable intelligence on wetland tourists’ revisit intention using an extended model of goal-directed behavior

Abstract

Although environmental empathy and sustainable intelligence have been identified as important concepts, relatively few researches have been conducted to explore their roles in wetland park tourists' decision-making process. Hence, in order to address this gap, the present study develops an extended model of goal-directed behavior, and then conducted a sequential and mixed research approach based on a quantitative survey(n = 353) and qualitative interviews(n = 60) to explore the formation of tourists' intention of revisiting a wetland park. Specifically, three critical constructs (i.e., environmental empathy, sustainable intelligence, and pro-environmental tourism behavior) were incorporated into the extended model of goal-directed behavior (MGB). And an onsite survey was conducted for tourists (n = 353) who visited six national wetland parks in Chongqing province of China. The proposed model was examined using structural equation modeling. Quantitative analysis reveals that the three critical constructs formed positive and significant causal relationships with the constructs in original MGB, and all the constructs in the original MGB were significant predictors of revisit intention. Quantitative and qualitative analysis have revealed that both environmental empathy and sustainable intelligence positively influence tourists’ revisit intention while sustainable intelligence (0.043) has a greater impact on this process than environmental empathy(0.029). Desire acted an important mediating role between antecedents of MGB and behavioral intention. Understanding tourists' psychology and Behavior is beneficial for park practitioners' marketing strategies improvement and sustainable tourism development. The findings of this study will not only enrich the theory of traveler behavioral intention, but also expand the model of goal-directed behavior under natural-based destination sites.