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Top1. Introduction
To promote carbon reduction in the 21st century, low-carbon tourism is a rising tourism and recreation paradigm. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) explains behavioral intentions and subsequent behavior of individuals as a result of three factors: personal attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. TPB is often used in tourism and hospitality research to predict and examine tourists’ intention for choosing destination (Lam & Hsu, 2006), decision-making (Quintal, Lee, & Soutar, 2010), tour planning (Sparks, 2007), and so on. However, a research gap exists in the model about explaining the low-carbon tourism orientation.
This research shall focus on the topic of “low-carbon tourism” behavior in Taiwan. “Low-carbon tourism” behavior in the context of this study refers to “Tourists may reduce carbon dioxide emission by their choice of destinations, favouring environmentally friendly means of transport, and choosing environmentally certified hotels, as well as eating in restaurants providing local and/or organic food. Tourists can also demand transportation in new, fuel-efficient aircraft, or to stay in environmentally friendly” (Simpson, Gössling, Scott, Hall, & Gladin, 2008). Globally, environmental concerns receive relatively little coverage in tourism industry due to consumer purchasing decisions and corporate environmental performance is largely unknown (Buckly, 2002). Locally, public reception toward environmental issues has also been lukewarm in Taiwan. In response, the government has introduced new initiatives to increase the environmental awareness of the public in an effort to transform Taiwan into a “low-carbon island.” The regency of this topic in the public mindset makes it a good point of focus for this study.
The purposes of this study are, first of all, to establish a reasonable model via TPB to predict which factors may impact “low-carbon tourism” toward behavior. Next, we want to make up gaps in theories by integrating possible constructs. The specific objectives of this study were to address the impact of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, past travel experiences on behavioral intention, to exam the impact of behavioral intention on preferred behavior, to investigate the moderating role of perceived behavioral control in the relationship between behavioral intention and preferred behavior, and to identify perceived barriers that tourists possibly perceive.
Consequently, this study choices the TPB framework to determine the persuasive efficacy on behavioral intention and preferred behavior toward low-carbon tourism. The relationship between past travel experiences, the three predictive factors of behavioral intention, and preferred behavior will be investigated. In addition, perceived behavioral control may affect as moderator between behavioral intention and preferred behavior. Thus, we proposed a modified model in this research to exam the moderator effect of perceived behavioral control.