TITLE:
Sustainable Tourism Development: An Empirical Analysis of Tourists’ Emotional Drivers for Environmentally Responsible Behavior
AUTHORS:
Jun Lei, Yunjing Li, Yun Zheng
KEYWORDS:
Cultural Heritage Tourism, Emotional Experience, Environmentally Responsible Behavior (ERB)
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.13 No.9,
September
26,
2025
ABSTRACT: Against the backdrop of high-quality tourism development, tourists’ environmental awareness continues to rise, and their demands are shifting from traditional “landscape consumption” to “emotional resonance.” Based on the “Stimulus-Emotions-Environmentally Responsible Behavior” theoretical framework, this study investigates the pathways of tourist emotion generation and their impact mechanisms on environmentally responsible behavior, using a sample of 405 tourists from six major historical and cultural destinations in China (Xi’an, Guilin, Chengdu, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Nanjing) through questionnaire surveys. The findings reveal that: (1) authenticity and participatory experiences are key factors in evoking tourists’ positive emotions and place attachment; (2) Positive emotions, place attachment, authenticity, and participation collectively explain 61.1% of the variance in environmentally responsible behavior; (3) Gender differences exist in the influence on environmentally responsible behavior. Based on these findings, this study proposes strategies such as immersive cultural experience design, social interaction and co-creation mechanisms, and emotional communication tactics to effectively translate tourist emotions into environmentally responsible actions. The research provides theoretical support and practical guidance for developing emotion-driven sustainable tourism products in historical and cultural scenic areas.