Promoting site-specific versus general proenvironmental behavioral intentions: the role of interpretation

With the growing emphasis on sustainable tourism, visitor management practices such as interpretation have played an important role in achieving the multiple goals of tourism—both enhancing tourist satisfaction and fostering proenvironmental behavior. Yet previous research reveals contradictory results of interpretation effectiveness on environmental conservation outcomes. This study attempts to explain some of those contradictions by separating out general from site-specific proenvironmental behavioral intentions. This study also offers a conceptual and methodological basis for distinguishing interrelationships between interpretation and three antecedents of proenvironmental behavior, including specific environmental attitude, tourist satisfaction, and two types of behavioral intentions. Self-completed surveys were used at an Australian iconic nature-based attraction, the Great Barrier Reef. The findings highlight that interpretation has both a direct and an indirect relationship (through the mediating factors of visitor satisfaction and environmental attitude) to proenvironmental behavioral intentions. Furthermore, interpretation is more likely to be associated with site-specific proenvironmental behaviors than general ones. The results have implications for the use of interpretation as a visitor management strategy, for behavioral change in environmental practices, and for tourist experience enhancement.