The Complex Nature of Ecotourist Experience and its Relationship with Pro-Environmental behavior in a National Park

Background and objective: Despite the increase in the number of studies related to visitor experiences and behavior in ecotourism and outdoor recreation settings, little empirical research has concentrated on how to identify the nature of ecotourists’ experiences within national park settings. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the complex nature of ecotourists’ experiences through personal, social, and environmental conditions, and to examine its relationship with pro-environmental behavior in natural environmental settings.Methods: For visitors, a questionnaire survey was administered to 396 adults who visited a national park in South Korea. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient scores were assessed to examine the reliability of ecotourist experiences. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to explore the construct validity of the factor structure in the measurement variables. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were analyzed to examine the relationships between independent variables. Path analysis was used to examine the contributions of ecotourist experiences to satisfaction and pro-environmental behavior.Results: One of the most important findings is that ecotourist experiences scale shows relatively acceptable measurement properties and reasonable levels of fit. The results in the path model represented that ecotourist satisfaction had large effects on pro-environmental behavior. Based on the fit statistics in the proposed model, the relationship between the measurement variables provides a relatively good fit to the data and verify the convergent validity of the measures. Personal factor of ecotourist experience had significant effects on satisfaction. Additionally, satisfaction had a significant effect on pro-environmental behavior for ecotourists.Conclusion: The findings of the study provide empirical evidence that three dimensions of ecotourist experiences were significantly related to pro-environmental behavior through visitor satisfaction in natural environmental settings. Further study may need to explore the nature of visitor experience and its relationship with behavior of man-made structures in different settings.