Antecedents for College Students’ Environmentally Responsible Behavior: Implications for Collective Impact and Sustainable Tourism

With the advent of mass tourism, tourism-related environmental problems are often reported in the news media. Tourists' environmentally responsible behaviors (TERB) are critical for solving tourism environmental problems. This study argues that college students are a critical source of collective impact for tourism sustainability, and examines chained relationships that might determine college student TERB. Five hundred and twenty-five (525) college tourists were surveyed. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the relationships among the variables and the mediating effects. Results confirmed our proposed relationships of chained influences from tourism destination image (as key information) to tourist expectation (as cognition), to perceived quality and value (as experiences), to tourist satisfaction, loyalty, and complaints (as emotional reflection), and finally to TERB. Such results shed light on TERB education and construction, as well as on the collective impact for sustainable tourism.