The social route to sustainability under a community hospitality lens: from destination curiosity to environmental stewardship

Purpose The study aims to clarify the social foundations of environmentally responsible action in tourism by examining how destination curiosity shapes interpersonal interactions and perceived psychological distance, situated within community hospitality. Addressing an underexplored gap, it identifies conditions under which curiosity-driven social contact cultivates felt connection to place and stimulates accountable, pro-environmental behavior. Design/methodology/approach Field data were collected from domestic Chinese tourists in Beijing. Using established multi-item measures, the hypothesized relationships and indirect effects were examined via structural equation modeling. Findings Destination curiosity motivates tourists to seek out and engage more deeply with other tourists, residents, and service providers. However, only encounters perceived as warm, meaningful, and informative significantly reduce psychological distance to the destination community. This sense of closeness, in turn, translates into a greater willingness to protect the local environment. Practical implications Destination curiosity can be leveraged as a low-cost means to encourage high-quality interaction within a hospitable community climate, and, ultimately, promote sustainable behavior. Originality/value This study shows how a personal, exploratory motive can be transformed into collective environmental benefits through high-quality social contact and reduced social distance, directly addressing calls for more socially situated, behaviorally focused sustainability research in tourism. It integrates construal level theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and the contact hypothesis to explain how curiosity-driven interaction with other tourists, residents, and service providers shapes pro-environmental behavior. By modeling all three dyads simultaneously, the study identifies social distance reduction, achieved specifically through high-quality rather than frequent contact, as the key pathway to environmental stewardship.