Abstract In the development and management of natural tourism destinations, the introduction of artificial facilities provides convenience. However, due to visual incongruity, these facilities may invade the aesthetic harmony of the natural landscape and, through the “broken windows effect,” inhibit tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors. Nevertheless, the internal psychological mechanism and boundary conditions of this phenomenon remain unclear. This study systematically explored the impact path of artificial facility intrusion on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors through three progressive situational experiments. Study one confirmed the direct negative impact of artificial facility intrusion on pro-environmental behaviors. Study two revealed the chain mediating role of “aesthetic experience–place attachment” in this impact. Study three further verified the positive moderating role of individual ecological environment value in the “aesthetic experience–place attachment” path. The results show that artificial facility intrusion weakens tourists’ aesthetic experience and place attachment, thereby inhibiting their pro-environmental behaviors, while high levels of ecological environment value can significantly strengthen the positive transformation of aesthetic experience to place attachment. This study not only provides empirical evidence for understanding the behavioral transmission mechanism of “visual breakage” in the tourism environment but also provides important insights for optimizing facility planning in natural destinations.
Gou et al. (Thu,) studied this question.