The pro-environmental behavioral intention of villagers in rural tourist destinations under China’s environmental remediation policy

Abstract

This study examined villagers’ intention of pro-environmental behavior while supporting the Landcare Policy in China. The research team conducted field surveys of villagers from four famous scenic spots of Cili, which is near the world natural heritage site of the Zhangjiajie natural landscape core area. This area has developed rural tourism, many local villagers rely on tourism to obtain their livelihood income. However, the area is now affected by the environmental remediation policy called Landcare Policy. Cultivated land near the tourist area needs to be repaired, which affects the tourism income of some local villagers. Therefore, local villagers are facing a contradiction between tourism development and environmental protection. The study chose the change in local villagers’ pro-environmental intention as the research content. Then we adopted an empirically validated norm activation model (NAM) from Schwartz, and merged the NAM with the expectancy theory of Vroom, based on 511 valid responses from the field questionnaire surveys, we aimed to develop a theoretical framework for researchers to understand the change in villagers' pro-environmental behaviors, concerning the balance between rural tourism livelihood benefits and environmental remediation behavior. Structural equation modeling was conducted for each index of the responses, the findings showed that the merged model had 76.46% better predictive accuracy of villagers’ pro-environmental intentions than applying Schwartz’s NAM independently. This study found that the motivational force of this new theory significantly influences environmental personal norms due to the joint impact of valence, instrumentality, and expectancy. Villagers with a positive pro-environmental behavior intention expect good tourism benefits and environmental living conditions under the impact of the Landcare policy in rural tourism destinations near the famous natural heritage site.