Effects of pro-environmental destination image and leisure sports mania on motivation and pro-environmental behavior of visitors to Korea's national parks

Abstract

The purposes of this research were: (1) to examine the effects of pro-environmental destination image on motivation and pro-environmental behaviors; (2) to examine the key underlying factors of leisure sports mania; and (3) to understand fully how different factors of leisure sports mania influence motivation and pro-environmental behaviors. Based on previous studies, six main hypotheses were derived as constructs and a theoretical research model was proposed. The model was tested using the data collected from 222 people who have visited national parks in Korea. The data analysis revealed that environmental image affects both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, but does not affect any of the pro-environmental behaviors. In contrast, ecological image positively affects intrinsic and preservative behavior. For leisure sports mania, the result of EFA indicated that there are only three categories (i.e. conative, cognitive, and affective), contrasting the original research suggested four factors. It was also found that each factor of leisure sports mania influences motivation and pro environmental behavior separately, and the conative and cognitive factors positively moderate the relationship between intrinsic motivation and preservative behavior. Lastly, there was no effect of extrinsic motivation on pro-environmental behavior, whereas intrinsic behavior significantly affected pro-environmental behaviors. The key implications of these findings are discussed in the latter part of this paper.