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People's pro-environmental behavior (PEB) is commonly recognized as a result of individual rationality or moral considerations. However, the compative roles of rationality and morality in fostering such behavior in the tourism/leisure context remains to be investigated. This paper uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the norm-activation model (NAM) as representatives of rational and moral notions, and examines the relative strengths of the models in explaining visitors' pro-environmental intentions in nature-based destinations. An empirical study was conducted in three natural parks in Hangzhou, China. Local visitors (N = 323) and tourists (N = 231) participated in the survey. Structural equation modeling was adopted. It is found that although both the rational and the moral models could explain the participants' pro-environmental intentions, yet the NAM model was superior, especially in interpreting nonlocal tourist pro-environmental intentions. Recommendations are provided for a more holistic understanding and effective promotion of PEB in nature-based destinations.

Tourists’ green behavior has recently attracted much academic interest. The majority of the existing studies use quantitative research methods and explore how tourists’ cognitive and emotional factors influence their environmental actions. This study assesses tourists' green behavior from a unique perspective, that is, how hosts at rural Chinese B&Bs interact with tourists and shape their sustainable actions. The research team analyzed why the rural hosts are motivated to promote tourists’ green behavior, and identified the strategies they pursue to convince the tourists to be more sustainable. Guzhu Village, well known for its rural tourism and popular with senior tourists in the Yangtze River Delta, was the site for the study. Auto-ethnography was used as the key research method. It was found that both tangible and intangible environmental benefits motivate the hosts to guide tourists’ sustainable behavior. Hosts specifically structure some leisure activities and use compelling signage to both promote positive environmental actions and simultaneously enhance tourists’ satisfaction. This is the first study to emphasize the active roles of the hosts in shaping tourists’ green behavior through dynamic social interaction. The findings highlight the processes, such as humor and social approval, which have broad international applicability. Further, it was noted that the hosts employ ‘face’, a distinctive Chinese concept, to limit tourists’ less-desirable behaviors. Practical implications are also offered for sustainable destination management.

This study seeks to assess the factors influencing the satisfaction of Chinese tourists when they undertake self-drive international vacations. There are few existing studies about this independent travel market. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken to gather initial views about the attributes contributing to self-drive satisfaction. A questionnaire-based survey was then employed in Shanghai. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to test the factors which significantly affected tourists’ satisfaction. Analysis of the data reflected some of the findings from limited previous studies of other international groups: the scenery, road facilities, and available activities all have a significant positive impact on satisfaction. However, for the Chinese drive tourists, the responses of the local community to their trip, as well as key environmental issues, notably air quality, are distinctively important concerns. Implications are identified for international destination management organizations which are interested in promoting to and developing this self-drive Chinese market.

Senior tourists are key figures in the world's drive tourism market. This study focusses on the 'Grey Nomads' in Australia, the core aim being to understand the tourists' motivations patterns for attending recreational vehicle (RV) rallies. At a typical RV rally in a key regional destination, 170 questionnaire-based surveys were collected. Building on the theoretical analysis of travel motivation studies, factor analysis of the combined internal and destination feature motivational attributes suggested five key motivations with three hierarchical levels of influence. The leading motivational influences were destination attractiveness and the appeal of the rally itself, while the desire to enhance one's relationship and socialisation were a powerful part of the total pattern. Escape and achievement, and knowledge enhancement, were important but significantly less prominent in the overall arrangement of the motivating forces. An analysis of the rally goers' activities on site and in the region reinforces the hierarchical nature of the RV participants' motivation. This work helps to better understand the forces shaping senior RV tourists' travel choices and also offers implications for regional destinations that are seeking to attract the large, nationally important and mobile tourism community.

Family travel is conducive to family function and tourists' personal development. Despite its long-established emphasis of family and learning through travel, limited effort has been invested in understanding Chinese adolescents' learning outcomes in the family tourism literature. This study adopted a mixed-method approach to establish a measure for such learning outcomes and validated the measurement scale via three rounds of surveys. The results suggested an eighteen-item and four-factor learning outcome structure with acceptable levels of reliability and validity. The four factors were family awareness, personal capability, destination knowledge and self-reflection. Family awareness was found to be the strongest predictor for Chinese adolescents’ well-being in family travel.

Building on the theory of social representations, and some new lines of work asserting the importance of mundane components of the tourist experience, the aims of the study are to categorise and interpret Chinese tourists’ online visual representations of an Australian iconic landscape: the Great Ocean Road. Over 10,000 pictures posted online were coded using a nine-part scheme developed by the researchers. The work builds an understanding of the content of Chinese tourists’ photographs and highlights a way to uncover the social representations in such material. The study provides evidence that a two-part emancipated social representation characterises the online photographs: one portrays the spectacular physical environmental features of the setting, while the other represents many small-scale and mundane places, contacts and sites. The study articulates a role for mundane authenticity in tourism studies and provides evidence for this emerging perspective through the analysis of the photographs.

This study analyzes an uncommon tourism attraction pricing phenomenon in China, known as “free West Lake”. West Lake Scenic District in Hangzhou is a World Heritage Site in China׳s most prosperous eastern region. Here, the admission fee was progressively removed and free access was introduced. This paper uses Chinese newspaper reports, official documents and academic articles to explore the evolution of the pricing policy and its consequences for visitor use and government finances, with implications for other attractions in China and elsewhere. This novel pricing initiative resulted in an initial economic loss to the local government but eventually broadened the economic base, reduced the environmental pressure on certain sensitive heritage sites, and enhanced tourists׳ experiences, residents׳ quality of life and the city׳s reputation, providing novel insights into public resource management in China. The case highlights the importance of adopting a broad perspective on admission pricing, as the implications may extend beyond the narrow confines of the facility in question.