Tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour in travel destinations: benchmarking the power of social interaction and individual attitude

Tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) in travel destinations features the social attributes of altruism and collective action. In addition to recognising the power of individual attitudes (e.g. environmental value, environmental concern, and environmental knowledge) in predicting tourists’ PEB intentions, this paper highlights the role of social interactions. After reviewing different schools of the social capital theory, this study identifies three social interactional factors, i.e. emotional bonding, in-group norm, and trust in cooperation and examines their power in predicting tourists’ PEB intentions. It further benchmarks the social interactional and individual attitudinal factors that influence tourists’ low-effort and high-effort PEB intentions. An empirical survey study is conducted with over 500 Chinese domestic tourists in an iconic wetland park. Analysis of the data indicates that the social interactional factors are significantly associated with both the low-effort and high-effort PEB intentions of tourists, and the effects are generally stronger for tourists’ high-effort PEB intentions. By contrast, environmental value and environmental concern displayed by the tourists only show positive association with high-effort PEB intentions, and environmental knowledge is unrelated to the PEB intentions of tourists. Recommendations are provided for a more nuanced understanding and effective promotion of PEB in travel destinations.