Daily green behavior as an antecedent and a moderator for visitors’ pro-environmental behaviors

Habits are powerful indicators of people’s decisions and behaviors (e.g., Allan, 2019; Verhoeven et al., 2012 Verhoeven, A. A. C., Adriaanse, M. A., Evers, C., & de Ridder, D. T. D. (2012). The power of habits: Unhealthy snacking behaviour is primarily predicted by habit strength. British Journal of Health Psychology, 17 (4), 758–770. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2012.02070.xCrossref, PubMed , Google Scholar). Based on a survey with 625 frequent travelers in the U.S., this study examines how visitors’ daily green behaviors (DGBs) influence their pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) at tourism destinations. It also examined the power of habit by treating it as a moderator to test if different levels of DGB would make a difference in tourists’ destination behaviors. The study contributes to the extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior by capturing habit’s impact as a non-planned component in the decision-making process, the spillover as well as the accumulative effects of habits in travelers’ pro-environmental behaviors at destinations.