Wildlife Conservation through Economically Responsible Ecotourist: The Mediator Roles of Attitude between Anticipated Emotion and Intention to Stay in Local Homestays

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript uses a simple and clever theoretical model to explain the role of anticipated emotion in the decision making process for the local stay. Although this manuscript suggests a constructive solution to increase local stay decision based on the research, there are some major challenges to meet the academic standards.

1) Introduction

Introduction did not fully explain the research gap. It only mentioned few studies about home stays. Considering the main idea of this manuscript is based on the decision process in the home stay, it should clearly show the research gap based on this perspective. Also, I cannot understand why the role of anticipated emotion is important through the introduction. 

2) literature review

I totally agree with the authors' logic between the homestay and the wildlife conservation. However, it would be better for readers to explain the previous studies on the homestay and eco-tourism. lots of studies in tourism showed their interest on the homestay issue, but this manuscript covers few in the introduction, and it is so abstract for readers to understand the current status of the homestay issues and eco-tourism.

 3) method

It will be useful to separate the explanation of the target area, the measurement, and sampling process. They are all mixed in the method section, and it is hard to understand the actual status.

Other sections are well-written, but English editing should be needed due to the lots of errors in grammar. 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment"

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I feel the authors will need to revise this manuscript before it is ready for publication in Sustainability.

Introduction – poor sentence structure throughout this section. It would appear that the authors have not fully introduced the study topic. What are the main themes, areas for discussion and gaps in the literature? These are some of the basic elements I would expect to see in any introduction.

Literature review and Research Hypotheses – the authors need to restructure and re-write large sections of the literature review, as in its current form it does not flow correctly from one section/idea/theme to another. This has resulted in the literature review lacking coherence.

This literature review also lacks sufficient engagement with some relevant pieces of work, which I suggest the authors should engage with (see below)

• Dolnicar, S., Crouch, G.I. and Long, P., 2008. Environment-friendly tourists: what do we really know about them? Journal of sustainable tourism, 16(2), pp.197-210.
• McLoughlin, E. and Hanrahan, J., 2016. Local authority tourism planning in Ireland: An environmental perspective. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 8(1), pp.33-52.
• Gong, J., Detchkhajornjaroensri, P. and Knight, D.W., 2019. Responsible tourism in Bangkok, Thailand: Resident perceptions of Chinese tourist behaviour. International Journal of Tourism Research, 21(2), pp.221-233.
• Jamal, S.A., Othman, N.A. and Muhammad, N.M.N., 2011. Tourist perceived value in a community-based homestay visit: An investigation into the functional and experiential aspect of value. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 17(1), pp.5-15.
• King, N. and Nair, V., 2013. Determining the wildlife value orientation (WVO): A case study of lower Kinabatangan, Sabah. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.
• Malone, S., McKechnie, S. and Tynan, C., 2018. Tourists’ emotions as a resource for customer value creation, cocreation, and destruction: A customer-grounded understanding. Journal of Travel Research, 57(7), pp.843-855.

The authors also need to keep the narrative in the literature review focused on the topic area (the above suggested article might help in this regard). In this current submission, the narrative tends to drift off i.e. psychology. This needs to be discussed in the context of the aim/study area. It is also not clear how the authors developed the four-hypothesis based on the current literature review. I suggest the authors re-visit this and make sure the elements of the hypothesis are discussed in the literature review.

Methods – Perhaps the authors could include a map of the case study site to the give the reader some context? What is clear from the methods section is that there is a clear lack of justification for the chosen methods. The authors need to revisit this section and discuss if there are any similar studies that have utilised a similar methodology? What were the benefits? Etc.

Why structural equation modelling? What does this offer the examination? This needs to be justified with relevant work cited in the text.

Discussion/Conclusions – first it must be acknowledged that the authors have carried out a detailed data analysis, which is good to see. However, as this is a discussion section, the authors need to engage more with relevant academic theory/literature. The authors need to draw conclusions between the discussion in the literature review (see suggested articles above) and the findings. This is lacking in its current form.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment"

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of the suggestions are reflected in the revised manuscript. 

Author Response

This manuscript has undergone an English editing process with experts from Proofreader United. "Please see the attachment"

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comment - Introduction – poor sentence structure throughout this section. It would appear that the authors have not fully introduced the study topic. What are the main themes, areas for discussion and gaps in the literature? These are some of the basic elements I would expect to see in any introduction

The authors have addressed this comment

Comment - Literature review and Research Hypotheses – the authors need to restructure and re-write large sections of the literature review, as in its current form it does not flow correctly from one section/idea/theme to another. This has resulted in the literature review lacking coherence. This literature review also lacks sufficient engagement with some relevant pieces of work, which I suggest the authors should engage with

The authors have addressed this comment

Comment - Perhaps the authors could include a map of the case study site to the give the reader some context? What is clear from the methods section is that there is a clear lack of justification for the chosen methods. The authors need to revisit this section and discuss if there are any similar studies that have utilised a similar methodology? What were the benefits? Etc. Why structural equation modelling? What does this offer the examination? This needs to be justified with relevant work cited in the text

The authors have addressed this comment

Comment - First it must be acknowledged that the authors have carried out a detailed data analysis, which is good to see. However, as this is a discussion section, the authors need to engage more with relevant academic theory/literature. The authors need to draw conclusions between the discussion in the literature review (see suggested articles above) and the findings. This is lacking in its current form.

I do feel that the authors could have discussed the findings in more detail, and drawing upon the relationship between the gaps identified in the literature review and the findings from the study.

Author Response

"Please see attachment"

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.