Fostering customers' pro-environmental behavior at a museum

Abstract

Understanding visitors' pro-environmental behavior is vital as sustainability is currently a critical issue in the museum industry, yet visitors' pro-environmental decision-making process has not been sufficiently investigated. This study fills this void in the extant tourism literature. While the theoretical base for comprehending the nature of museum visitors' pro-environmental behaviors is still in the introduction stage, our proposed framework for encouraging pro-environmental behavior among museum visitors including cognitive variables, affective variables, willingness to sacrifice, connectedness to nature and pro-environmental intentions was supported through empirical testing. The present study also contributes to helping museum researchers and practitioners clearly understand the dynamic role of each study construct in generating museum visitors' intentions for environmentally responsible behaviors while visiting a museum.