Pro-Environmental Behavior of Nature Tourism Operators in Texas

Abstract

As a key sector in tourism and outdoor recreation in the U.S., nature tourism has been contributing to local economic development. An important issue related to nature tourism management is nature tourism operators’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) that can essentially moderate tourists’ experience and reduce the environmental impacts to the nature. A web survey collected data from tourism operators in Texas who work in the nature tourism segments of hunting, fishing, adventure tourism, and agritourism.

The results indicate that the majority of eight classified PEBs were implemented by close to or over half of the nature tourism operators. Two behavioral theories – the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and the Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Environmentalism (VBN) – were separately employed to analyze the survey data. Significant antecedents of PEBs were found from both models, while the TRA model was proven a better theory than the VBN model in more effectively interpreting nature tourism operators’ PEB.