Toward Sustainable Agritourism: How Social Responsibility Shapes Tourist Citizenship Behavior

Agritourism has increasingly emerged as an important form of sustainable tourism due to its economic, social, cultural, and environmental contributions to rural communities. Despite the growing attention to sustainable tourism, limited research has examined how destination social responsibility encourages tourists to engage in voluntary behaviors that support destinations, particularly in agritourism settings. In addition, previous studies have provided limited understanding of the psychological and contextual mechanisms through which destination social responsibility influences responsible tourist behavior. To address these gaps, the study develops and tests an integrated framework based on the stimulus–organism– response framework and signaling theory to explain the psychological and social mechanisms through which destination social responsibility influences responsible tourist behavior. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling on a sample of 424 tourists at agritourism destinations in Vietnam, we find that perceived destination social responsibility stron gly and positively predicts tourist citizenship behavior. Meanwhile, tourist-destination congruence and place attachment serve as partial mediators. Furthermore, destination reputation positively moderates the relationship between perceived destination social responsibility and tourist citizenship behavior. This study contributes to the sustainable tourism literature by clarifying the cognitive, emotional, and signaling processes underlying responsible tourist behavior in agritourism settings. The findin gs also provide practical implications for destination managers seeking to develop culturally aligned and reputation-enhancing strategies to foster sustainable agritourism development.