Is walking or riding your bike when a tourist different? Applying VAB theory to better understand active transport behavior

Myung Ja Kim; C Michael Hall

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114868

Is walking or riding your bike when a tourist different? Applying VAB theory to better understand active transport behavior

J Environ Manage. 2022 Mar 11:311:114868. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114868. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Myung Ja Kim¹, C Michael Hall²

Affiliations

¹ The College of Hotel & Tourism Management, Kyung Hee University, 26 Kyungheedae-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 02447, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: silver@khu.ac.kr.
² Department of Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, 8140, New Zealand; Department of Geography, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden; Department of Service Management and Services Studies, Lund University, Helsingborg, Sweden, Centre for Research and Innovation in Tourism, Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia. Electronic address: michael.hall@canterbury.ac.nz.

PMID: 35287083
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114868

Abstract

Active transport (walking and biking) has significant environmental, health, and social benefits. Despite the importance of active transport, theoretically framed research has not sufficiently considered what makes consumers walk or bike based on activity types, particularly in an Asian context. This is an important topic as it helps provides a basis for better targeted marketing and promotion to encourage greater public engagement with active transport. To fill this knowledge gap, this work applied the value-attitude-behavior (VAB) theory to understand walkers and bikers' behaviors in comparing tourism, leisure, and work activity. Results indicate that value on attitude has the greatest influence, followed by personal, and then social norm. Behavior for active transport is significantly influenced by personal norm, followed by attitude and social norm. Interestingly, from the three types of activities, the tourism group has the strongest relationship of value and attitude and the highest prediction for attitude and behavior.

Keywords: Cycling; Sustainability; Sustainable tourism; Sustainable transport; Value-attitude-behavior (VAB) theory; Walking.