A Quantitative Study on Empathic and Normative Factors Promoting Pro-Poor Tourism

Over 700 million people are suffering from absolute poverty around the world. This research focused on whether empathy and norms sequentially function to promote participation in pro-poor tourism (PPT), which is one of the solutions to alleviate absolute poverty. However, because PPT has not been recognized in Japan, participation intention in PPT was interpreted using donation intention to absolute poverty. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyzed the online questionnaire of 144 men and 146 women and deduced a nonrecursive model. This model indicated that a statistically significant path from injunctive norms returned once to themselves through personal and descriptive norms and, after that, reached intention. This conceptual cycle suggests that concepts such as donation intention to absolute poverty and participating intention in PPT are not sufficiently accepted as prosocial behavior and that a combination of these factors is needed to influence prosocial behaviors. Furthermore, marketing is recommended to spread basic information about the concept and how to practice it regarding PPT activities because of the low awareness of PPT.