Greening in nostalgia? How nostalgic traveling enhances tourists' proenvironmental behaviour

Sustainable development has risen to hold a vital role in tourism research and practice, requiring a deep understanding of what factors could promote tourists' environmental behaviour. This research focuses on the sustainable development of tourism and aims to converge nostalgia, meaning in life, and the theory of planned behaviour to understand the factors influencing tourists' proenvironmental behaviour. A field study (n = 428) was conducted at a famous tourist destination in China. Structural equation modelling showed that nostalgia enhances tourists' proenvironmental behaviour through mediators including subjective attitude, perceived behavioural control, subjective norms, and meaning in life. This research illuminates the importance of nostalgia in the sustainable development of tourism, suggesting that tourism managers could use nostalgic elements to design effective programmes or policies in environmental practices.