What influences tourists' intention to participate in the Zero Litter Initiative in mountainous tourism areas: A case study of Huangshan National Park, China

Abstract

The Zero Litter Initiative (ZLI) of bringing self-generated litter down the mountain is a new attempt to reduce tourism litter generation on climbing trails in China. The extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to analyze the influencing factors of tourists' environmentally responsible behavioral intention to participate in the ZLI, including three additional explaining variables of personal norms (moral obligation to do ZLI), past behavior, and incentive measures, as well as three control variables of gender, age, and educational level. A total of 372 valid questionnaires were collected from tourists in Huangshan National Park. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis showed that: (1) the extended TPB model had stronger predictive power than the original TPB model; (2) tourists' intention to participate in the ZLI was significantly and positively influenced by their attitude toward the behavior (positive or negative opinions), subjective norms (perceived social pressures from referents), perceived behavioral control (perceived ease or difficulty), past behavior, and the strongest predictor of personal norms; (3) incentive measures mainly referred to economic incentives (e.g., lower ticket prices) and non-economic incentives (e.g., a gift and honorary title), which had no significant influences on tourists' intention, and there may be a "crowding-out effect" on intrinsic motivations for collective action in public space; (4) gender had significant influences on tourists' intention, which showed females had stronger participation intention than males. Age had significant and positive influences on tourists' intention, which indicated older tourists were more willing to participate in the ZLI than younger tourists. However, the educational level had significant and negative influences on tourists' intention. Lastly, the study presented practical suggestions for enhancing tourism litter management and achieving sustainable development in mountainous tourism areas.

Keywords: Influencing factors; Responsible tourism litter management; The theory of planned behavior; Zero Litter Initiative.