Sustainability and visit intentions: The mediating role of identification with the destination.

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework to enhance tourism competitiveness, crucial for recovery post-COVID-19. Despite initial successes, research on SDGs' impact on destination brand image is limited. This study explores SDGs' influence on destination brands and the mediating role of identification in a cross-cultural context, organized around four research questions. The study uses data from online surveys in five countries, analyzed through PLS-SEM. Results show that destination SDGs are the most predictive of visit intention, with tourist SDGs negatively moderating this influence. The study finds that SDG-congruity measures are redundant and do not enhance visit intention prediction. Additionally, tourist-destination identification (TDI) partially mediates the influence of destination SDGs and fully mediates SDG-congruity. Cross-cultural differences reveal that destination SDGs are stronger predictors in collectivist societies, where TDI does not mediate their effect.