The sample consists of responses from Indian consumers. The findings reveal that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and environmental friendly activities are significant predictors of intention. These constructs explained approximately 50 percent of the variance in the intention.
The results of this study contribute to the body of the knowledge of intention, eco-friendly destinations, and tourism experiences and also provide useful information for developing effective marketing strategies to encourage consumers to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences. Every tourism activity creates an experience whether positive or negative. Hence, visit to all eco-friendly destinations must be set up to provide consumers with an unforgettable and unexpected tourism experience Dalonso et al.
The subjective personal responses and feelings associated with tourism activities are 1 Department of Commerce, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India sjdkhancool gmail. The ability of tourism companies to attract and retain consumers is dependent on their ability to create memorable tourism experiences Kandampully et al. Eco-tourism, sustainable tourism, environmental friendly destinations and environmental friendly activities are the terms used to describe tourism that is good for the environment.
All of these terms are interrelated. Eco-tourism is a kind of tourism taking full responsibility for the economic, social and environmental effects of its present and future and addressing the requirements of its tourists, industry, environment and host communities Ahmad et al. Tourism is an activity that is economical and requires economic, social, cultural, and environmental inputs across traditional industries.
Eco-tourism is growing at a rate that is nearly three times the rate of tourism in general Hultman et al. Similarly, sustainable tourism is a journey that not only concentrates on reducing the damage caused to the natural environment by tourists but also requires sustainable growth of the contribution of tourism to the economy, culture and society and the sustainable use of resources and environment.
Walsh and Dodds explain that there has been a favorable relationship between competitiveness, economic performance in organizations and low-cost methods to sustainable development that focus on operational efficiency. Providing guests with the opportunity to experience more about nature in ways that lead to better understanding, appreciation and pleasure is an important component of visiting an eco-friendly destination. As a service- oriented sector, the tourism industry is heavily impacted by the quality of the tourism experiences in its services and facilities Abdul Gani et al.
The study incorporated an additional construct i. It is expected that increased consumer awareness and interest in eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences will influence consumer visit intention. The intention to travel to environmentally friendly destinations for tourism experiences can be considered pro-environmental, inspired by compassion for others, coming stages, or the environment as a whole Ashraf et al.
At last, limitations and directions for further researches have been given. The TPB is empirically supported and among the most frequent theoretical frameworks used to anticipate and analyze human behavior Ajzen, ; Kautish et al.
Behavior intentions can be anticipated with highly precise behavioral attitudes, subjective norms and PBC Ajzen, For instance, Ahmad et al. Yarimoglu and Gunay evaluated the intents of consumers to visit green hotels by utilizing TPB with two integrated structures, EFA and overall image. Ashraf et al. Setyawan et al. When the results are examined appropriately, the consumer has a more favorable attitude and is often more inclined to participate in that particular behavior Lee, ; Cheng et al.
Behavioral beliefs shape attitudes toward behaviors, which reflects positive and negative behavioral assessments. IX, Issue 4, experiences Ashraf et al. The following hypothesis has been proposed based on the above conceptual and empirical foundation: H1. Attitude has a significant and positive effect on the intention to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences.
Social influences to participate or not in a target behavior are described by subjective norms Ajzen, Subjective norms are described as the measure to which key customers value while selecting to visit environment-friendly tourism destinations. Subjective norm includes normative beliefs and demonstrate how others perceive and react to actual behavior.
It exerts social pressure on people to engage in or refrain from engaging in a particular behavior Ajzen, Subjective norms are regarded perspectives of people who are reasonably close and who significantly impact the decisions.
As a result of the higher degree of social pressure, consumers will be more likely to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences.
It has been shown in prior studies that subjective norms positively affect intention Tonglet et al. Based upon the previous findings, the following hypothesis is formed: H2. Subjective norm has a significant and positive effect on the intention to visit eco- friendly destinations for tourism experiences. This structure has two components: control beliefs, which are the personal evaluation of the presence or absence of behavioral facilitators and inhibitors, and perceived power that represent the personal evaluation of its impact on enabling or preventing the particular behavior of these factors.
Perceived behavioral control, in particular, assesses how effectively one can control elements that might assist or restrict activities necessary to deal with a certain circumstance Han et al. Perceived behavioral control depicts the view of people that the activity of interest is easy or difficult to accomplish Ajzen, In the context of the current study, PBC can be understood as how easy or difficult it is to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences.
Hence, the following hypothesis is formed: H3. Perceived behavioral control has a significant and positive effect on the intention to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences.
Former researches demonstrated the positive facet of eco- friendly consumption in comparison with other factors in individual psychographics Jeong et al. A positive attitude towards the importance of visiting eco-friendly activities for tourism experiences is required to be environmentally conscious Laroche et al. When it comes to visiting eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences, environmentally conscious consumers are more likely to do so than those who do not Han et al.
Based on previous studies, we have postulated the following hypothesis: H4. Environmental Friendly Activity has a significant and positive effect on the intention to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences. IX, Issue 4, Table 1. Green Image, Visiting friendly Intention destinations. Satisfaction and Loyalty. Willingness to pay more with TPB. Subjective Norm does not. Online spend time at a illustrating how visitors U.
Conscious the antecedent elements of Behaviors intention. Source: Own Elaboration Figure 1. The attitude was determined by four items adapted from Lam and Hsu Subjective Norm was determined by four items from Ajzen and Hsu and Huang PBC was determined by four items adapted from Ajzen Environmental Friendly Activities were determined by four items adapted from Han et al.
Lastly, Intention was determined by four items adapted from Han et al. IX, Issue 4, slightly changed to make them more appropriate for this study. Appendix A displays the items. This is a quick and easy method of sampling. Before posting the questionnaire, a pilot study of 40 respondents was conducted to ensure that the questions were clear and easily understandable. The results of the pilot test confirmed the reliability. From May 1 to June 30, , the survey link was shared on social networking sites.
The appropriate sample size has been estimated for this study based on the recommendation of Hair et al. There were responses in total, 38 cases omitted due to incomplete values.
The final sample of valid responses was considered, which is greater than the required value of no less than for SEM Boomsma, ; Paul et al. With the help of frequency tables, the demographic properties of the sample have been analyzed. After that, the two-stage process proposed by Anderson and Gerbing was subsequently followed to analyse data by SEM and verify if the data is suitable for the proposed model. Second, to investigate the causal relationship of latent variables, SEM has been utilized to validate hypotheses.
The characteristics of the respondents are given in table 2. INR Among all variables, Attitude ATT has the highest mean value 5. The highest standard deviation 1. IX, Issue 4, Table 3. Descriptive Statistics Construct Mean Std. Deviation ATT 5.
Table 4 displays the cumulative percentage Table 4. Alpha coefficients should be 0. All variables have been recognized as reliable in the study because they met the threshold criterion of reliability Table 5.
The authors used the Fornell and Larcker recommendations to confirm convergent validity: 1 all factor weights must be greater than 0. All of the items had loading values greater than 0. The AVE ranged from 0. Table 5. Table 6. Table 7 presents the results of the hypothesis testing. Therefore, all the hypotheses are supported. Table 7. Figure 2 shows the structural model and path coefficients and the numbers in the brackets are t-values. The results of the study validated the TPB usage in predicting intention to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences, as EFA and original TPB components have a significant positive impact on Intention.
In the context of this study, the attitude can be understood as a favorable evaluation of intention to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences. Consumers may perceive visiting eco-friendly destinations as an environmental friendly tourism experience. Also, if they have a positive attitude towards eco-friendly destinations, they will prefer visiting eco- friendly destinations for tourism experiences over conventional destinations. This finding states that consumers think that visiting eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences would be favorable, enjoyable, fun and pleasant.
This outcome is because social pressures have a strong impact on the intended behaviors of consumers. Their intention to visit eco-friendly destinations will be strengthened if they understand that their close ones peers, family, and relatives expect them to do so for tourism experiences Ahmad et al.
As a result, consumers believe that visiting environmentally friendly destinations for tourism experiences is socially acceptable Paul et al. The most probable reason for this finding is that consumers are confident, they have time and resources, and they do not perceive difficulty in visiting eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences.
Hence, this research verifies the effectiveness of the extended TPB model. Therefore, in the context of eco-friendly destinations, EFA can be one of the key determinants of intention. The addition of EFA to the TPB broadens the current tourism literature, as no other study has considered EFA for predicting the intention of visiting environmentally friendly destinations for tourism experiences in the Indian context. JSOD, IX 4 , should be prioritized to encourage consumers to explore eco-friendly destinations.
Marketers who deal in eco-friendly destinations should look for ways to boost EFA, as this will increase the intention to visit eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences. Subjective Norm has a strong influence on intention; managers should focus on the ways by which favorable subjective norms towards visiting eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences can be developed among consumers. As per the results, PBC is also one of the key determinants of intention, so managers should focus on improving the tourism infrastructure at eco-friendly destinations, reducing the overall cost of visiting eco-friendly destinations so that consumers can perceive that they have time, money, resources and control over traveling to eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences.
Therefore, future research should concentrate on the actual behavior of consumers visiting eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences, which will bridge the gap between intention and actual behavior.
Second, only an additional construct was added to the TPB model, i. Environmental Friendly Activities. In future studies, it is suggested to add more constructs like environmental concern, knowledge value, experience, etc. Third, the data have been collected for this research study using a Web-based survey method.
This method is easy and practical for reaching out to a larger population. However, respondents of this study were limited to those having computers and access to the internet connection.
To address this issue, future studies should examine intention in an actual setting of eco-friendly destinations for tourism experiences. Fourth, data was obtained from Indian consumers. As a result, generalizing the findings to consumers in other countries or continents should be done with caution. To improve the generalizability of the results, a larger sampling range of different geographic locations should be included in future studies.
Fifth, this study did not take the relationship between demographic characteristics and variables into consideration, so it should be investigated in future studies to gain a better understanding of consumer profiles.
Understanding the intention to revisit a destination by expanding the theory of planned behaviour TPB. Ahmad, W. Journal of Business Research, , IX, Issue 4, Ajzen, I. From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In Action control pp. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. The theory of planned behavior.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50 2 , — Perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, locus of control, and the theory of planned behavior 1. Journal of applied social psychology, 32 4 , Understanding attitude and predicting social behavior. Ajzen, I. The Influence of Attitudes on Behavior. Zanna Eds. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Prediction of goal-directed behavior: Attitudes, intentions, and perceived behavioral control.
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Psychological bulletin, 3 , Armitage, C. Efficacy of the theory of planned behaviour: A meta-analytic review. British journal of social psychology, 40 4 , Sustainability, 12 8 , Business Strategy And The Environment, 29 1 , On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 16 1 , 74— Specification, evaluation, and interpretation of structural equation models.
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40 1 , Assessing construct validity in organizational research. Administrative science quarterly, Baker, M. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 55 1 , Issues in the intention-behavior discrepancy. Research in consumer behavior, 1 4 , Eco-tourism from a conceptual perspective, an extended definition of a unique tourism form.
International journal of tourism research, 2 3 , Boomsma, A. The declaration of several wildlife areas and national parks has encouraged the growth of the wildlife resource, which reduced due to the wildlife hunt by several kings in the past.
Today, India has many wildlife sanctuaries and protection laws. Currently, there are about 80 national parks and sanctuaries in India, which works for the protection and conservation of wildlife resource in India.
There are numerous Botanical and Zoological Gardens in India, which are working towards the enhancement of the Ecosystem.
Poaching has stopped to large extent. There are severe punishments for poachers, hunters and illegal traders of animals and trees. Tree plantation are taking place in several places.
Numerous organizations and NGOs are coming forward to provide environmental education to the common people at the grass root level. Undoubtedly, Yes! As the eco tourism is a nature based tourism which preserves the nature and the cultural values of the locals.
Economic Significance of Tourism In India, tourism is emerging as a key sector in the economy. The rate of growth in foreign exchange earnings from tourism is exceptionally high. The most significant feature of the tourism industry is its capacity to generate large-scale employment opportunities, particularly in remote and underdeveloped areas.
It offers enormous potential for utilising natural resources like landscapes, mountains, beaches, rivers etc. It also adds value to a multitude of human-made attractions such as monuments, palaces, forts and the unique rural and city environments.
A special feature of the tourism industry is that it employs a large number of women and young people in hotels, airline services, travel agencies, making handcrafts, undertaking cultural activities, and other tourism-related tasks. The planned and focused activities have also led to increase in revenues for the park management. The local people have been involved in tourism based activities through ecodevelopment projects.
A potential threat While benefits of ecotourism can be many, excess activities can always be a threat. Construction of resorts in crucial elephant corridors of the Nilgiris biosphere reserve has caused obstruction in elephant migration leading to a rise in human wildlife conflict.
Road kills are common on roads leading to eco tourist places. Resource extraction mainly water and fuel wood to meet the tourism needs are degrading the habitat quality of the region and most of all excess eco tourism is becoming a threat to wildlife - there is insufficient attention being paid to the tourist carrying capacity of each protected area PA and there is no limit on the number of vehicles or number of tourist entering a PA per day. Several ecotourism projects opened up in Himalayas in the past have proven to be unsustainable.
Places like Nanda Devi Biosphere reserve had to be closed because of high environmental degradation caused by ecotourism activities. Eco tourism activities carried over by private tour operators are generally not overseen by government and are turning largely commercial.
There are over 44 private tourist resorts operating on the reserve forests of Masinagudi region in Nilgiris Biosphere reserve. Sometimes the Private resorts do not follow operation guidelines, or serve the purpose of increasing awareness about conservation.
With no obligation of private tour operators to involve local people, much of the ecotourism projects here are becoming purely commercial. This leads to economic leakages - significantly reducing the funds available for local people and the protected area. Steps to make Ecotourism Sustainable There is a need to ensure that our ecotourism activities are undertaken in a sustainable manner. Loss of wildlife and habitat can in turn affect the eco tourism potential of the region. Ecotourism can be sustainable only if it is well planned and runs on a set of guiding principles.
Incorporating environmental knowledge into planning contributes significantly to sustainable tourism planning. The procedure starts with site selection, site evaluation, developing alternatives and appropriate implementation.
Site selection and Evaluation The selection of tourist zones can be based on a variety of principles like areas rich in wildlife or that have charismatic species that can attract tourist, logistics requirement like access to nearest road and rail. Early investigation of sociological and ecological features is needed in site selection.
Unfortunately most small scale projects are never evaluated for their impact on wildlife. Site Evaluation The next step is site evaluation — to ensure suitability of the site for the project. Carrying capacity of the region in terms of number of resorts that can be built or the number of visitors and vehicles that can be present at a given time needs to be worked out.
The site design should ensure that the tourism zone does not fall onto critical habitat like corridors, waterholes or breeding grounds. Assessing the Alternatives The next step is to assess the alternatives and to make sure that the selected site is the best available for the project.
As a follow through, land acquisition aspects need to be considered as well prior to site selection. Design and Implementation The last step is comprehensive design and implementation plan. Competent agencies that have experience in environment planning can be brought in to design ecotourism projects. With Geographic Information System GIS becoming a useful and reliable planning tool, it has become easy for decision makers and planners to evaluate the resources and make designs and plans in a sustainable manner.
Ecotourism planning has helped in site selection and assessing site suitability. Further GIS based carrying capacity analysis for many protected areas especially in China and South East Asia has been carried out as part of design of sustainable ecotourism plans. Planning at landscape level is necessary and the entire planning process should involve district administration authorities, members of forest department, tourist department and tour operators and should be based on full consultation with the local people of the region.
Recommendations for making ecotourism sustainable Even after careful planning and implementation much of ecotourism can become unsustainable - the main reason being lack of operational guidelines. To make ecotourism sustainable in the long run careful planning, implementation and monitoring is required.
Such plans should aim at long term benefits and not be short sighted. This should include grant of permits to private tour operators, establishment of interpretation centers, and involvement of local people in ecotourism activities.
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