Environmental beliefs and behaviours of visitors to a tourist destination: The antecedent role of climate change scepticism

Abstract

Acknowledging the existence of climate change and promoting pro-environmental behaviours to mitigate it are critical issues that involve public policy makers, businesses, and society in general. The objective of this study is to better understand the factors that influence the pro-environmental behaviours of visitors at a tourist destination. Integrating the theory of planned behaviour and the construal-level theory the authors develop an innovative structural equation model to evaluate the simultaneous relationships between climate change scepticism, as a predictor, and self-efficacy beliefs and unsustainable behavioural intention, as mediating variables, within the specific context of tourism-related carbon footprint. Analysed results from a sample of 656 Spanish travellers showed that this unified model demonstrated a satisfactory level of behavioural prediction regarding actions aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. According to the findings, the greater the travellers’ levels of perception of personal control over the environmental impact of their vacation in a tourist destination and the lower their unsustainable behaviour intention, the greater their commitment to reducing CO2 emissions associated with transportation. Additionally, when people view climate change as an event that is uncertain and temporally distant, their perception of behavioural control decreases, and their intention to behave in an unsustainable way at the destination increases.