Community vs tourist incentives design in ecotourism: authenticity and engagement effects

Purpose This study aims to examine why tourism incentives succeed or fail in community-based tourism (CBT), arguing that their effectiveness hinges not merely on economic logic but on symbolic interpretation. By integrating motivational crowding theory, service-dominant logic and greenwashing literature, this study explores how incentives function either as symbolic reinforcers or sources of moral dissonance – depending on tourists’ value orientation. Design/methodology/approach The study proposes a dual-pathway model that distinguishes symbolic complementarity (value amplification via pro-community incentives) from symbolic substitution (value compensation via tourist-directed incentives). Using a mixed-method design, 1,022 Thai tourists were surveyed, including a focal high-commitment ecotourism subsample (n = 340). Structural equation modeling, multi-group analysis and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) were used to test mediation, moderation and configurational hypotheses. Findings The study shows that community-oriented incentives enhance engagement by fostering perceived authenticity, which operates as a symbolic complementarity pathway. In contrast, tourist-directed incentives may backfire among high-value ecotourists unless symbolically justified through fairness or community salience. The fsQCA analysis confirms that perceived authenticity and fairness are both necessary and sufficient conditions for engagement, while overt tourist-directed incentives can undermine moral resonance. Originality/value This research advances tourism incentive theory by reframing incentives as symbolic artifacts interpreted through moral filters. It introduces a dual-pathway framework and empirically demonstrates symbolic divergence across psychographic segments. The study also deepens theoretical understanding of greenwashing backlash and value co-creation in sustainability-sensitive tourism. Managerially, the study operationalizes this theoretical shift into measurable governance and promotion diagnostics, recommending a dual key performance indicator (KPI) incentive evaluation system that couples conventional economic KPIs with symbolic metrics (e.g. meaning retention, perceived fairness recall and community value capture) to prevent greenwashing inference, sustain CBT governance visibility and preserve a responsible travel aura while optimizing visitor flow or livelihoods.