| Abstract [eng] |
The research aimed at identifying push and pull motivations for outbound tourists to visit sustainable tourism destinations, revealing their travel attitudes towards both sustainable tourism and sustainable tourism destinations, and predicting their travel intentions. In order to achieve the aim, the research applied the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model, and extended the model by including push-pull motivations, expanding the dimensions of attitudes, and adding perceived destination image together with subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions to visit sustainable tourism destinations. In order to carry out the research in a scientific contextual background and to produce the research results valuable for both tourism researches and practice, the study adapted Chinese outbound tourists as the research respondents and employed Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen as the exemplified sustainable tourism destinations. The study identified push and pull motivations influencing outbound tourists to select sustainable tourism destinations, tested correlations between push-pull motivations and attitudes, examined relationships among push-pull motivations, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceived destination image, and intentions to visit, as well as predicted outbound tourists’ intentions selecting sustainable tourism destinations within the extended TPB model. The research results showed that 1) ‘enhancement of kinship relationships’, ‘regression’, ‘social interaction’, ‘exploration and evaluation of self’, and ‘escape’ were 5 push factors driving tourists to travel outbound. ‘Novelty’, ‘knowledge’, ‘destination sustainability’, ‘attraction, activities & events’, ‘shopping’, ‘availability & convenience’, ‘safety & comfort’, and ‘trip price’ were 8 pull factors attracting outbound tourists to select sustainable tourism destinations; 2) all pull motivations were positively significantly correlated with attitudes while only a few push motivations were positively significantly correlated with attitudes; 3) all pull motivations were positively significantly correlated with intentions to visit the sustainable tourism destinations while only a few push motivations were positively significantly correlated with intentions to visit the sustainable tourism destinations; 4) attitudes were positively significantly correlated with intentions to visit the sustainable tourism destinations; 5) both subjective norms and perceived behavioral control were positively significantly correlated with intentions to visit the sustainable tourism destinations; 6) perceived behavioral control was positively significantly correlated with intentions to visit the sustainable tourism destinations; 7) and the research further tested the differences in importance of push-pull motivations, travel attitudes and travel intentions for Chinese outbound tourists to select sustainable tourism destinations. What’s more, the research showed a consistent result with Gnoth (1997) that pull factors were subjective situations when travel motivations had impacts on travel attitudes, and it provided an example of applying extended TPB model for travel motivational researches, while the results supported the statements of China Tourism Academy that current Chinese outbound tourists emphasized more on the quality of the travels, and tended to enjoy qualified life environment and services of the outbound travels. Keywords: sustainable tourism destinations; outbound tourists; push motivations; pull motivations; attitudes; subjective norms; perceived behavioral control; perceived destination image; and intentions to visit. |
