This study explores the nature of sustainable tourist awareness and its potential role as a determinant of tourists’ commitment to the sustainable development of the destinations they visit. Data were collected through a survey administered to individuals aged 18 or older who had engaged in nature-based tourism within the previous 12 months. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, along with structural equation modelling, were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings show that sustainability awareness among nature-based tourists encompasses the traditional economic, sociocultural and environmental dimensions, while also revealing a fourth component related to the negative consequences of nature tourism. The results validate the four corresponding measurement models and confirm a positive relationship between the traditional dimensions of sustainability awareness and overall sustainability; however, this relationship does not extend to the newly identified dimension. The analysis further supports several hypotheses, including a cause-and-effect relationship between overall sustainability awareness and the sustainable behaviour of nature-based tourists towards the destination, pointing to the emergence of an “aware tourist” whose behaviour is consistent with their sustainability consciousness. As pioneering research on the awareness and behaviour of nature-based tourists, this study is limited by its focus on a specific tourism segment and geographical context, suggesting the need for replication in other cultural and territorial settings to enhance generalisability. The originality of this work lies in its early exploration of the role of nature-based tourists in sustainable development through their behaviour, addressing the critical question of how tourists act in accordance with their awareness to support destination sustainability.
Berne-Manero et al. (Thu,) studied this question.