Wetland conservation tourism marketing: the effects of perceived sustainability and biodiversity knowledge on environmental awareness and pro-environmental behavior in Bakut Island

Abstract

Sustainable development goal (SDG) #15 is the major challenge for biodiversity conservation tourism marketing to ensure sustainability. To answer this, tourism marketing must provide solutions by creating tourists’ awareness and behavior toward a pro-environment. This study aimed to analyze the influence of perceived sustainability (PS) and biodiversity knowledge (BK) on environmental awareness (EA) and pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in the context of biodiversity sustainability. Method: Quantitative analysis was performed using PLS-SEM. The results of this study showed that PS and BK significantly affected EA and PEB. Similarly, EA also had a significant effect on PEB. Novelty: Provide a new paradigm for conservation tourism marketing to instill awareness and create behavior towards biodiversity sustainability in tourists. This study significantly contributes to theory building in green tourism marketing and provides solutions to SDG#15 (life on land) to create sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems and stop the decline in biodiversity loss. This study also provides strong implications for researchers and academics in building research models to meet the demands of stakeholders to instill awareness and pro-environmental behavior in tourists while improving economic performance. The implication for economic actors in the tourism business is to develop the concept of sustainability of tourist attractions by providing information related to sustainability. Likewise, the government is a business facilitator that accelerates the achievement of the SDGs.