Abstract
There has been increasing interest in coastal tourism, sparking a debate on the responsible environmental behavior of travelers visiting sustainable destinations. To mitigate this issue, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and environmental activists are trying to develop strategic approaches (i.e., by using digital technologies) to enhance the sustainable behavior of travelers. Environmental responsiveness and its impact on sustainable destinations is gaining attention by companies, scholars, and institutions. However, the relevant literature has not addressed social media user-generated content regarding sustainable destinations. Sharing stakeholder knowledge, activities, and experience on social media could accomplish this goal. Hence, this paper aims to explore travelers′ responsible environmental behavior towards coastal tourism within the social media user-generated content paradigm. To measure the effect of user-generated content (UGC), i.e., cognitive triggers and affective triggers, on the responsible environmental behavior of travelers, a survey questionnaire was used to collect data (n = 506) from the world’s longest sandy sea beach, Cox’s Bazar, located in the Southern part of Bangladesh. The data were examined by structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that cognitive and affective triggers of user-generated content influence travelers’ environmental concerns and attitudes, making a significant contribution to shaping responsible environmental behavior. Additionally, the findings show that environmental concerns and attitudes play a significant role in producing commitment towards a sustainable coastal tourism practice. This study contributes to the effectiveness of user-generated content for persuasive interactions with destination marketing organizations to develop sustainable tourism practices.
Highlights
Coastal tourism is an emerging sector within the world tourism industry
The results show that the measurement model provided a good fit to the data (χ2 = 573.382; comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.958; goodness of fit index (GFI) = 0.904; incremental fit index (IFI) = 0.958; Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = 0.951; chisquare/degrees of freedom (χ2/df) = 3.203; probability level (p) < 0.00, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.066)
The findings have shown that the goodness of fit statistics of the conceptual framework suggests a good match, because it lies in a satisfying range (χ2 = 599.944, χ2/df = 3.315, Goodness of Fit index (GFI) = 0.901, Adjusted Goodness of fit index (AGFI) = 0.874, Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.948, Comparative Fit Index (CFI)
Summary
Coastal tourism is an emerging sector within the world tourism industry. Millions of travelers visit coastal beaches for recreational activities, such as surfing, swimming, and camping [1]. These emerging tourism trends are important in coastal tourism due to their entertainment elements [2,3], such as “sea, sun, and sand” with “a relaxed friendly” atmosphere. Coastal tourism provides economic contributions to destinations [4,5]. The interest in coastal tourism raises new issues regarding the ecological status and sustainability of the host communities [6,7]. Primarily designed to be used by residents, are suffering from a growing number of people looking for tourism activities that are interlinked with local customs [8]
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