Explore the World Responsibly: The Antecedents of Ethical Tourism Behaviors in China

Abstract

While ethical tourism is becoming more important in the tourist industry, relatively little is known about ethical tourism in China and what motivates Chinese tourists to undertake ethical tourism. This study examines this issue by adopting the planned behavior theory to explore the impact of Chinese tourists’ personal factors, positive social influence, image of destination and quality of services on their behavioral intentions in order to better understand what motivate Chinese tourists to participate ethical tourism. The results show that knowledge of ethical tourism, attitude toward ethical tourism, influences from family and friends, and local environment of the destinations are the key factors that drive Chinese tourists to undertake ethical tourism. In addition, service customization, service support and past experiences with ethical tourism are also important determinants of tourists’ satisfaction with ethical tourism, which further affects Chinese tourists’ intention to visit. Implications for ethical tourism marketing and management are then discussed with reference to how to promote more ethical tourism.

1. Introduction

The last decade has seen the fast emergence of the sharing economy [1,2,3], which, on the one hand has led to dramatic changes in the nature of relationships between producers and consumers and has thus fostered the growth of many well-known startups like Airbnb and Uber [1,3]. The sharing economy, on the other hand, has also disrupted various service sectors such as transportation, tourism and hospitality, and professional services [2]. Increased attention has thus been paid to exploring the managerial challenges and opportunities in the emerging sharing economy, in particular in relation to customer experience management and service quality in order to achieve sustainable growth and development [4,5,6].

Along with increased research on responsible consumption across the globe and the call to explore the world more responsibly and mindfully [4,5], sustainable consumption and further ethical tourism has begun to gain popularity both in academia and in practice. Research on ethical tourism has become an increasingly important and growing portion of academic enquiry in the field of tourism [5,7,8,9,10,11]. Given its emphasis on mindfulness to the effects of tourists’ actions on the environment and local community, ethical tourism has the potential to become an important ally of the long-term preservation of nature biodiversity and regional development and, as a result, ethical tourism has often been seen as the driving force for sustainable social-economic development around the world [9,12]. The tourism industry is indeed an essential economic driver for both developed and developing countries with tourists’ spending accounting for 9% of worldwide GDP in 2012 [5]. Successful ethical tourism can increase a destination’s employment, destination image, and local government revenue [4,12,13]. It is therefore crucial to have a good understanding of what factors affect ethical tourism and what attracts tourists to undertake ethical tourism in order to help promote and market ethical tourism in the global context [4,5,14,15,16,17,18].

Despite the emergence of ethical tourism as an important sector in the tourist industry and the increasing research attention to related issues, relatively little is known about ethical tourism in China [2,7,10,12,19,20,21]. With China’s rapid economic development and average Chinese consumers’ increased purchasing power, tourism has quickly become one of the most popular activities for many Chinese people over the last decade [19]. Following three decades of reform and rapid economic growth, China is on its way to becoming the next economic superpower. It is the world’s most populous country, second largest economy, and the largest recipient of foreign direct investment [22,23]. With over three trillion dollars in foreign reserves and growing national wealth, Chinese people have become more able to afford recreational activities, both domestic and overseas, and the nature-friendly ethical tourism is developing faster in China [19]. China has also become one of the favorite emerging ethical tourism destinations for tourists from around the world [7,19], but surprisingly few studies have examined ethical tourism in China and even fewer have investigated the antecedents of ethical tourism in China and why the Chinese choose to undertake ethical tourism. A few studies have begun to examine ethical tourism related issues in some East Asian regions, such as Japan and South Korea, which are often greatly influenced by Chinese culture [12,14,20].

This study aims to help expand ethical tourism research by exploring the antecedents of Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism in order to better understand the motive and its determinants for ethical tourism in China. This study will focus on Chinese tourists’ personal factors, positive social influence, image of destination, and quality of services received during ethical tourism to explore the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of Chinese tourists in order to answer the question of what drives Chinese tourists to undertake ethical tourism [7,20,21]. In addition, Chinese culture is a collectivistic culture where group harmony is strongly encouraged and group influences are prominent [24], quite different from individualistic cultures in the West. Chinese people are more likely to be affected by group membership, in particular in group-based activities such as ethical tourism. Consequently, China will be a powerful test of the universalistic aspiration of Western theories on ethical tourism because there are a lot of cultural barriers in China that make it very difficult or even impossible to simply impose Western theories and practices to China [25,26]. An examination of ethical tourism in China and the determinants of Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions will help explore the unique characteristics of ethical tourism and facilitate the promotion and marketing of ethical tourism and other service products in the Chinese context [12,22,27] and further, for a better understanding of prosumers and ethical tourism around the globe. The rest of the paper is organized as follows—Section 2 presents the conceptual background and hypotheses development, Section 3 reports the methods used, including research instrument, data collection and analysis, Section 4 presents the analysis results, and Section 5 concludes the papers with discussions on theoretical and practical implications.

2. Conceptual Background and Hypotheses

Ethical tourism refers to the responsible and sustainable consumption of a tourist destination while trying to conserve the environment and improve the well-being of local communities. It requires mindfulness and thinking of the consequences of one’s actions as a tourist on the environment, local people, and local community. Over the years, ethical tourism represents a growing portion of the world tourism [19] and it has gained more momentum in the new century when sustainability has become a key aspect of economic development [28,29,30]. Similar to the study on sustainable tourism or eco-tourism [1,2,5,7,8,9,10,11,19,30], ethical tourism also emphasizes responsible and sustainable behaviors in the undertaking of tourism. Research on ethical tourism has focused on market segmentation, ecological, social-cultural, and economic impacts of wildlife viewing, and external environment and institutions [5,10,31], and relatively less effort has been made to explore and understand tourists’ motivations and behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism [4,10,12,32,33].

Scholars have contended that a good understanding of tourists’ motivations is crucial to the core aspects of marketing such as the promotion and advertising of ethical tourism [4,5]. The theory of planned behavior provides a good framework for exploring tourists’ motivations and behaviors [34,35]. According to the theory of planned behavior [34,35], attitudes and subjective norms are highly correlated with behavioral intention and behavioral intention is strongly correlated with actual behaviors. Therefore, if individuals consider certain behaviors as positive (attitude), and if they believe the group they belong to expect them to perform these behaviors (subjective norm), the intention (motivation) to perform the behaviors will be greater and the individuals will be more likely to perform these behaviors. Based on this theory, it is expected in this study that a tourist’s attitude and subjective norms jointly shape his/her behavioral intention and further actual behaviors. Therefore, an individual’s intention to undertake ethical tourism is expected to be affected by these factors, including individual factors such as his/her own attitudes towards ethical tourism and external factors such as how the society or social groups perceive ethical tourism as a social norm [12,31,33,34,36].

Research has shown that the driving force for tourists’ behaviors come from their own attitudes towards ethical tourism, their past experiences with ethical tourism, their knowledge of various tourism activities and benefits ethical tourism could bring to both tourists and natural protection, and the preservation of biodiversity [4,14,31,36]. Other studies have also shown that destination image [12] and service quality, as well as satisfaction with ethical tourism, all affect tourists’ behavioral intentions [12,32,37].

Ethical tourism in China has its unique characteristics. On the one hand, Chinese culture is a highly collectivistic culture where group harmony is strongly encouraged and group influences are very strong [24]. The subject norms in Chinese culture thus implicitly exert high pressure on its members for group congruence and group conformity. Group members are subject to high group pressures even in their everyday activities. Consequently, Chinese people are more likely to use their significant others’ behaviors as the reference for their own behaviors than those whose cultures place less emphasis on groups. In other words, they are more likely to undertake similar activities if their friends or family members have participated in such activities, such as ethical tourism, in order to act like their important others. On the other hand, the Chinese are generally high in risk-aversion [24] and, compared with individuals from the West who are relatively high in risk-seeking [24], they are less likely to take risks unless they have some knowledge of the consequences of their activities. As a result, their knowledge of, attitudes towards, and experiences with ethical tourism are important antecedents of their undertaking of ethical tourism.

Based on the findings of these studies and following the conceptual framework of the theory of planned behavior, this study develops a research model to explore the antecedents of ethical tourism in China as in Figure 1. In this model, we argue that personal factors such as tourists’ attitudes towards and knowledge of ethical tourism, past experiences with ethical tourism, positive social influence such as the positive influences from their families and friends and other social media, image of destination, and quality of the services provided during the ethical tourism will drive tourists to undertake ethical tourism. In addition, these factors will also affect tourists’ satisfaction with ethical tourism which then helps improve tourists’ behavioral intentions. This integrated research model is able to help us better understand ethical tourism in China and helps with the better management and development of ethical tourism in the increasingly globalized world market.

A tourist’s consumption process shows that tourist behavior consists of two major stages—the pre-visit decision making, often based on attitude toward ethical tourism, knowledge of ethical tourism, and past experiences of ethical tourism, and the post-visit evaluation of ethical tourism experiences (satisfaction) and future behavioral intention to revisit and the willingness to recommend to others [4,12,33]. Since an individual’s behavioral intention is jointly shaped by the individual’s attitude and subjective norms [34,38], when an individual considers ethical tourism as positive (attitude), and when s/he thinks friends or family or significant others would expect him/her to perform these behaviors (subjective norm), there will be a higher possibility of behavioral intention (motivation) and a high level of satisfaction with the behaviors, and this individual is more likely to do so. As a result, if Chinese tourists hold a positive attitude towards ethical tourism and have sufficient knowledge of ethical tourism and the benefits ethical tourism can bring to the undertakers, they are more likely to participate in ethical tourism and feel satisfied with the ethical components of tourism; and if Chinese tourists’ families and friends have the experiences of ethical tourism or other important media are promoting ethical tourism, they are also more likely to undertake ethical tours and feel satisfied with the ethical aspect in their tourism experiences. In particular, as one of the highly collectivistic cultures, Chinese culture places great emphasis on group harmony [24], which implicitly requires much group congruence, and group members are often subject to high group pressures in their everyday activities. Consequently, Chinese people are more likely to use significant others’ behaviors as their own behavioral models. In other words, if their friends or family members have ever participated in ethical tourism, they are more likely to do the same in order to act like others (i.e., group congruence). Thus, the following hypotheses will be tested in this study:

Hypothesis 1a.

Chinese tourists’ attitude, knowledge of ethical tourism, and experiences with ethical tourism will be positively related to their behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism.

Hypothesis 1b.

Chinese tourists’ attitude, knowledge of ethical tourism, and experiences with ethical tourism will be positively related to their satisfaction with ethical tourism.

Hypothesis 2a.

Chinese tourists’ positive social influence as subjective norms will be positively related to their behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism.

Hypothesis 2b.

Chinese tourists’ positive social influence as subjective norms will be positively related to their satisfaction with ethical tourism.

The image of destinations also affects tourists’ behavioral intentions and satisfaction level in ethical tourism [12,33,39]. Destination image reflects an individual’s mental representation and overall perception of a particular destination, and it may affect the destination choice in the pre-visit decision-making process and condition the after-visit evaluation of the experiences with ethical tourism, and empirical studies have shown that a favorable destination image will lead to positive behavioral intentions and high satisfaction level with ethical tourism [12,14,31]. Therefore, it is hypothesized in this study that:

Hypothesis 3a.

The image of destination will positively affect Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism.

Hypothesis 3b.

The image of destination will positively affect Chinese tourists’ satisfaction with ethical tourism.

Service quality is another important factor considered as the antecedent of satisfaction and behavioral intentions in a service setting [2,22,37]. For example, empirical studies have shown that high service quality received during the consumption of tourism services could lead to both higher satisfaction and more positive behavioral intentions in general [12,14,31,40,41]. Therefore, the following hypotheses will also be tested in this study to help understand Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions to participate in ethical tourism.

Hypothesis 4a.

The quality of services in ethical tourism will be positively related to Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism.

Hypothesis 4b.

The quality of services in ethical tourism will be positively related to Chinese tourists’ satisfaction with ethical tourism.

In addition, an individual’s level of satisfaction also affects the individual’s behavioral intention [33,41,42,43]. For instance, Oliver [44] found that satisfaction level was positively related to a consumer’s intention and willingness to purchase. Baker and Crompton [37] showed that satisfaction had a direct impact on individual behaviors. Pritchard [45] further proved in a tourism setting that the more satisfied with the destination the more likely tourists would revisit or recommend to others. Therefore, it is hypothesized in this study:

Hypothesis 5.

Chinese tourists’ satisfaction with ethical tourism will positively affect their behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism.

The research model of this study is shown in Figure 1, with Chinese tourists’ personal factors, positive social influence, destination image and service quality as the antecedents of their overall satisfaction and determinants of behavioral intentions, and the satisfaction level further affecting their behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism or recommending ethical tourism to others.

3. Methods

3.1. Data Collection and the Sample

The data were collected in three famous costal destinations in the east part of China, including Dalian, Qingdao and Qinhuangdao. Individuals who were visiting these destinations from all over the country were approached as the target population. With the assistance of several large travel agencies, tourists that were participating in sustainable tourism organized by these travel agencies were randomly contacted and asked to participate in this study on a voluntary basis. Respondents completed the questionnaire on the spot with questions completed by the investigators. To ensure the sample to be as representative and as widely spread as possible, no more than 10 tourists from each travel group were allowed to participate in this study. In addition, individual tourists that were travelling on their own in these destinations were also approached on a random basis to increase the diversity of the sample population. A total number of 340 questionnaires were distributed for this study. After removing questionnaire with missing information or incomplete demographic data, 277 usable questionnaires were obtained to be used in the analysis, with a response rate of 81.5%.

The respondent profile is summarized in

Table 1. The Demographic Information of Participants.

Characteristic	Total (N)	Percentage (%)
Age
18 or younger	9	3.2
19–29	67	24.2
30–39	97	35.0
40–49	62	22.4
50 or older	42	15.2
Occupation
Public sector employees	63	22.7
Professionals	73	26.4
Managerial personnel	56	20.2
Company employees	15	5.4
Students	24	8.7
Retirees and others	46	16.6
Gender
Male	143	51.6
Female	134	48.4
Education
Middle School or lower	12	4.3
High School/Vocational School	46	16.6
College/University	166	59.9
Graduate School or above	53	19.2
Monthly Income (RMB)
999 or below	28	10.1
1000–1999	84	30.3
2000–4999	118	42.6
5000–9999	39	14.1
10,000 or above	8	2.9

. The majority of the respondents are between 19 and 49 (about 82%), with a slight majority of male visitors (51.6%). Of all the respondents, over 79% of them have a college degree or above, with the majority having a monthly income of RMB 2000 or above (about 60%) (Please refer to Table 1).

3.2. The Questionnaire Design and Measures

This study used the survey method with a self-administered questionnaire to collect the data from Chinese tourists. The questionnaire was designed based on a review of relevant literature on ethical tourism and specific destination characteristics and service quality features in China [4,5,10,12,22] to identify relevant characteristics and affecting factors for ethical tourism. These identified survey items were then revised and finalized based on the feedback from five tourism scholars in Dalian, China and a pilot study of 20 business students that are familiar with key concepts of marketing and tourism. The final questionnaire consists of eight parts (all question items were based on 5-point Likert scales with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree”), with Part 1 dealing with attitude with ethical tourism with seven items covering various aspects of tourists’ attitude, Part 2 dealing with positive social influence with seven items covering two major aspects of influence including the one from medias and the one from family and friends, Part 3 dealing with destination image with 16 items covering two major aspects of destination image, Part 4 dealing with the quality of services with 25 items covering four major aspects of service qualities, Part 5 dealing with knowledge of ethical tourism with nine items covering various aspects of ethical tourism knowledge, Part 6 dealing with past experiences via a categorical scale to measure how many times the respondent have undertaken ethical tourism, Part 7 dealing with behavioral intentions and satisfaction with ethical tourism with four items each to measure their behavioral intentions to visit or the willingness to recommend to others and their evaluative perceptions of ethical tourism activities, and the last part dealing with the demographic information of the respondents, such as gender, age, education level, occupation and income.

3.3. Analysis

Analysis in this study was conducted in two steps—for the first step, factor analyses with principal component method and varimax rotation were conducted on positive social influence, image of destination and the quality of services to examine their dimensionalities and psychometric. On the basis of the first step, the relationships between personal factors (i.e., knowledge, attitude, experiences), positive social influence (i.e., the influence of media and the influence of family and friends), image of destination (i.e., the nature quality of destination and local environment), quality of services (i.e., service facility, service encounters, service customization and service support) and satisfaction with ethical tourism and behavioral intentions were empirically tested using the hierarchical regression analysis, with age, gender, level of education and monthly income as control variables. We also compared the differences in Chinese tourists’ knowledge, experiences, attitudes toward ethical tourism and general satisfaction with ethical tourism based on their demographic data.

4. Results

4.1. Measures of Antecede Factors

Confirmative factor analyses on positive social influence showed that two factors with eigenvalue greater than one explained 65% of the variance of positive social influence: influence of media (four items, reliability alpha = 0.78), with sample item including “many magazines, web sites, and TV/Radio commercials are promoting ethical tourism”, and influence of family and friends (three items, reliability alpha = 0.77), with sample items including “people around me (colleagues, classmates, friends, etc.) all have ethical tourism experiences”. Similarly, confirmative factor analyses showed that two factors with eigenvalue greater than one explained about 54% of the variance of image of destination—nature quality of location (7 items, reliability alpha = 0.86), with sample items including “the weather condition at the destination” and “the quality of biosystem and landscapes at the destination”, and local environment (9 items, reliability alpha = 0.90), with sample items including “convenience of local transportation” and “infrastructure at the destination”. Confirmative factor analyses also showed that four factors with eigenvalue greater than one explained about 62% of the variance of quality of services provided during ethical tourism: service facility (six items, reliability alpha = 0.84), with sample items including “all signs and indicators are easy to find and instructions are clear” and “hotels are fully equipped”, service encounters (11 items, reliability alpha = 0.92), with sample items including “service personnel are warm-hearted in helping tourists” and “service personnel are reliable”, service customization (6 items, reliability alpha = 0.88), with sample items including “can provide customized services” and “fully understand tourists’ needs”, and service support (two items, reliability alpha = 0.81), with sample items including “professional guided tours are available” and “local government in the destination provides sufficient support to tourism” (Please refer to

Table 2. Factor analysis of antecedents of Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions.

Factors/Items	Item Mean (s.d)	Factor Loading	Variance (%)	Cronbach α
1. Positive Social Influence
Factor 1: Influence of Media			49.33	0.78
(1) There are many reviews and comments on ethical tourism in various online forums and interest groups	3.90 (0.77)	0.858
(2) Many magazines, web sites, and TV/Radio commercials are promoting ethical tourism	3.88 (0.83)	0.751
(3) The fashionable travel activities make me believe I should try ethical tourism	4.10 (0.76)	0.688
(4) Travel experts introduce and recommend ethical tourism	4.16 (0.75)	0.673
Factor 2: Influence of Family/friends			15.60	0.77
(1) People who have taken ethical tourism tell me it is worthwhile	3.97 (0.74)	0.848
(2) People around me (colleagues, classmates, friends, etc.) all have ethical tourism experiences	3.91 (0.87)	0.811
(3) Family members or close friends believe it is a good choice to take ethical tourism	4.08 (0.73)	0.735
2. Image of Destination
Factor 1: Nature Quality of Location			45.94	0.86
(1) The weather condition at the destination	4.17 (0.69)	0.834
(2) The quality of air	4.10 (0.83)	0.819
(3) The percentage of green coverage	4.21 (0.68)	0.718
(4) The scenic quality of sunshine, beaches, and islands	4.19 (0.71)	0.602
(5) The quality of sea water in the close shore area	4.14 (0.83)	0.517
(6) The quality of local biosystems and landscapes at the destination	4.16 (0.75)	0.508
(7) The quality of built environment	4.00 (0.77)	0.486
Factor 2: Local Environment			7.72	0.90
(1) Prices and other relevant costs of ethical tourism	4.07 (0.76)	0.798
(2) Local residents’ awareness of environment protection	4.11 (0.78)	0.737
(3) Infrastructure at the destination (such as electricity, water, telecommunications, etc.)	4.06 (0.81)	0.668
(4) Accessibility of local tourism information	4.04 (0.80)	0.668
(5) Convenience of local transportation	4.03 (0.78)	0.657
(6) Hospitable and friendly residents	4.14 (.79)	0.656
(7) Construction of tourism projects (such as washing room, parking lot, et al.)	4.03 (0.84)	0.646
(8) Service of local hotels	4.07 (0.80)	0.634
(9) Infrastructure of local hotels	4.01 (0.79)	0.547
3. Quality of Services
Factor 1: Facility			44.68	0.84
(1) All signs and indicators are easy to find, and instructions are clear	4.04 (0.79)	0.786
(2) The construction at the destination does not do harm to local ecosystems	3.96 (0.74)	0.747
(3) The service personnel are dressed properly	4.12 (0.73)	0.674
(4) The infrastructure (such as parking lot, rest places) can sufficiently meet tourists’ needs	3.94 (0.82)	0.664
(5) Hotels are fully equipped (such as computers and access to internet) with enough space	4.05 (0.77)	0.561
(6) Restaurants have local characteristics	4.02 (0.85)	0.553
Factor 2: Service Encounters			6.52	0.92
(1) Service personnel are warm-hearted in helping tourists	4.22 (0.81)	0.730
(2) Travel agencies can provide accurate information on schedules and agendas	4.26 (0.78)	0.718
(3) Service personnel can provide timely solutions for tourists’ problems	4.16 (0.81)	0.659
(4) Solutions can be provided, and service offered within promised timeline	4.16 (0.81)	0.654
(5) Service personnel provide accurate and reliable information	4.20 (0.76)	0.640
(6) Service personnel are reliable	4.17 (0.81)	0.623
(7) The services provided are consistent with what is advertised	4.12 (0.90)	0.593
(8) Tourists can count on travel agencies for all transactions	4.29 (0.78)	0.583
(9) Tourists feel comfortable in dealing with service personnel and can count on them	4.17 (0.79)	0.507
(10) Service personnel are experienced, professional, and fast in response	4.23 (0.76)	0.485
(11) Hotels can provide best services around the clock	4.19 (0.84)	0.470
Factor 3: Service Customization			5.45	0.88
(1) Can provide customized services to tourists with special needs such as seniors or kids	4.21 (0.76)	0.752
(2) Fully understand tourists’ needs	4.21 (0.79)	0.701
(3) Positive attitude and caring about tourists	4.25 (0.80)	0.659
(4) Provide tourists-centered service	4.17 (0.77)	0.604
(5) Can provide customized services	4.12 (0.78)	0.598
(6) All service personnel are polite	4.35 (0.73)	0.571
Factor 4: Service Support			4.65	0.81
(1) Professional guided tours are available	4.16 (0.76)	0.784
(2) Local government in the destination provides sufficient support to tourism	7.15 (0.86)	0.766

).

In addition, tourists’ attitudes toward ethical tourism was measured with a 5-point Likert scale (seven items reliability alpha = 0.87), with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree” and sample items including “I believe ethical tourism is pleasant” and “I believe it is meaningful to choose ethical tourism”, and tourists’ knowledge of ethical tourism was measured with a 5-point Likert scale (nine items, reliability alpha = 0.90), with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree” and sample items including “ethical tourism can drive local regional economic development” and “ethical tourism emphasizes sustainability”. Tourists’ satisfaction was also measured with a 5-point Likert scale (four items, reliability alpha = 0.86), with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree” and sample items including “generally speaking, I am satisfied with ethical tourism” and “the experience of ethical tourism is what I expect”. Finally, the behavioral intentions were measured with a 5-point Likert scale (four items, reliability alpha = 0.80), with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 “strongly agree” and sample items including “I will recommend ethical tourism to my friends or colleagues” and “Given the opportunity, I will take more ethical tourism”. Factor analyses results were not included in the table for simplicity.

4.2. The Impact of Demographic Factors on Ethical Tourism

In this study, we first compare Chinese tourists’ individual differences based on their demographic information in order to better understand Chinese tourists who are undertaking ethical tourism as a group. The regression analysis shows that no gender difference is found for Chinese tourists with respect to their knowledge, attitude, past experiences, or the general level of satisfaction with ethical tourism, indicating that male and female tourists are very similar in their understanding and experiencing of, and feelings about, ethical tourism in China. As a result, gender-based appeals to tourists for promoting ethical tourism in China does not seem to be an effective marketing strategy. When the age of tourists is examined, a significant difference is found only for the knowledge of ethical tourism (F = 2.447, p < 0.047), wherein older tourists have a better knowledge of ethical tourism, and no significant difference is found for any other personal factors, including attitude, past experience and attitude toward ethical tourism. When the education level is considered, a significant difference is found only for past experiences, with tourist of higher education having more experiences (visiting more times) with ethical tourism (F = 4.311, p < 0.002). The results show that older tourists are more knowledgeable of ethical tourism, but better-educated tourists are more likely to undertake ethical tourism.

When the income level is considered, all variables, including knowledge, attitude, past experiences and satisfaction level, are significantly different among groups, with people of higher income having more knowledge of ethical tourism, a more positive attitude toward ethical tourism, undertaking more ethical tourism, and more satisfied with ethical tourism (F = 5.512, p < 0.001; F = 2.334, p < 0.043; F = 4.332, p < 0.001; F = 2.961, p < 0.013), which is reasonable because ethical tourism is still relatively expensive in China and only people of higher income are able to afford it and thus are more satisfied with their experiences. On the other hand, given their better knowledge of, and positive attitude toward, ethical tourism, high incomers should be the target groups for marketing ethical tourism in China.

Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations.

Variables	Mean	s.d.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
1. Gender	1.48	0.50
2. Age	3.19	1.06	−0.28 ***
3. Education	3.49	1.10	0.01	−0.17 **
4. Monthly Income	3.68	1.04	−0.07	0.10	0.43 ***
5. Knowledge of ethical tourism	4.19	0.56	0.07	0.05	0.07	0.26 ***	(0.90)
6. Attitude towards ethical tourism	4.12	0.59	0.03	0.02	0.06	0.18 **	0.53 ***	(0.87)
7. Experience with ethical tourism	2.99	1.35	0.03	−0.10	0.21 ***	0.18 **	0.10	0.10
8. Influence of media	4.01	0.60	−0.04	0.08	0.08	0.20 ***	0.58 ***	0.54 ***	0.11	(0.78)
9. Influence of family/friends	3.98	0.66	−0.08	0.16 *	0.04	0.20 ***	0.53 ***	0.52 ***	0.12 *	0.52 ***	(0.77)
10. Nature quality of location	4.12	0.54	0.04	0.17 **	0.01	0.21 ***	0.67 ***	0.49 ***	0.09	0.55 ***	0.59 ***	(0.86)
11. Local environment	4.06	0.58	−0.04	0.21 ***	0.02	0.26 ***	0.65 ***	0.46 ***	0.06	0.58 ***	0.56 ***	0.76 ***	(0.90)
12. Service facility	4.02	0.58	−0.13	0.22 ***	−0.03	0.20 ***	0.58 ***	0.41 ***	0.06	0.53 ***	0.55 ***	0.67 ***	0.71 ***	(0.84)
13. Service encounters	4.20	0.59	−0.13	0.33 ***	−0.10	0.12	0.57 ***	0.46 ***	−0.05	0.48 ***	0.50 ***	0.66 ***	0.61 ***	0.67 ***	(0.92)
14. Service customization	4.22	0.61	−0.12	0.25 ***	−0.12	0.02	0.56 ***	0.37 ***	0.01	0.42 ***	0.43 ***	0.59 ***	0.57 ***	0.62 ***	0.78 ***	(0.88)
15. Service support	4.15	0.75	−0.11	0.23 ***	−0.02	0.09	0.54 ***	0.38 ***	−0.02	0.38 ***	0.46 ***	0.50 ***	0.44 ***	0.45 ***	0.55 ***	0.61 ***	(0.81)
16. Satisfaction with ethical tourism	3.99	0.65	−0.13	0.09	0.00	0.17 **	0.60 ***	0.46 ***	0.26 ***	0.47 ***	0.53 ***	0.57 ***	0.55 ***	0.52 ***	0.53 ***	0.52 ***	0.51	(0.86)
17. Behavioral Intention	4.06	0.62	−0.12	0.12	0.11	0.22 ***	0.61 ***	0.52 ***	0.18 *	0.47 ***	0.51 ***	0.57 ***	0.62 ***	0.55 ***	0.50 ***	0.50 ***	0.40 ***	0.68 ***	(0.80)

Note: Total sample size N = 277; gender: 1 = male, 2 = female; experience with ethical tourism: 1 = never, 2 = once, 3 = 2–3 times, 4 = 4 times, 5 = 5 times or more; the numbers in bold along the diagonal line are reliability alphas; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

reports means, standard deviations and correlations among gender, age, education level, income and different behavior antecedents, behavioral intentions and satisfaction. In general, the correlations reflect expected relationships and provide confidence that the measures functioned properly for the effects tested in this study. The relatively high reliability coefficients of different variables provide further evidence for the validity of the scales used in this study.

4.3. The Impact of Antecedents on Ethical Tourism in China

Hierarchical regression analyses were then conducted with the variance inflation factors (VIF) examined to test the hypotheses developed at the beginning, and the results are shown in

Table 4. Regression Results.

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5
	Satisfaction	Satisfaction	Behavior Intention	Behavior Intention	Behavior Intention
Gender	−0.13	−0.12	−0.12	−0.13	−0.09
Age	−0.02	−0.08	−0.04	−0.09	−0.05
Education	−0.15	−0.09	−0.09	0.00	0.04
Monthly Income	0.12	0.01	0.11	−0.02	−0.02
Knowledge of ethical tourism		0.29 ***		0.25 **	0.21 **
Attitude towards ethical tourism		0.05		0.20 **	0.20 **
Experience with ethical tourism		0.21 **		0.22 **	0.13
Influence of media		0.01		−0.11	−0.10
Influence of family/friends		0.22 **		0.18 *	0.16*
Nature quality of location		0.05		−0.01	−0.01
Local environment		0.08		0.31 ***	0.31 ***
Service facility		0.05		0.04	0.04
Service encounters		0.05		0.05	0.03
Service customization		0.16 *		0.17 *	0.12
Service support		0.18 *		0.21 **	0.02
Satisfaction with ethical tourism					0.42 ***
R2	0.06	0.50	0.05	0.51	0.60
ΔR2	0.06	0.44	0.05	0.46	0.09
F	2.72 *	20.11 ***	2.55 *	11.99 ***	16.00 ***

* p < 0.05 (2-tailed) ** p < 0.01 (2-tailed) *** p < 0.001 (2-tailed).

and Figure 2. Because of the relatively high inter-correlations among some independent variables, the VIFs were examined during the regression analyses and the results showed that no VIFs were above 2.0, indicating that multicollinearity is not a problem in this study. The regression results show that, among Chinese tourists’ personal factors, better knowledge of ethical tourism leads to higher satisfaction with ethical tourism and positive behavioral intentions; favorable attitude leads to positive behavioral intentions; and more experiences with ethical tourism lead to higher satisfaction level with ethical tourism, which is consistent with the prediction of H1a and H1b, and H1a and H1b are supported.

When the impact of positive social influence is considered, the influence of media is not found to be significantly related to any criterion variable, but the influence of family and friends is a significant predictor of both behavioral intentions and high satisfaction level. In other words, the stronger the influence from family and friends, the more likely it is that Chinese tourists feel satisfied with ethical tourism and the more likely they are to undertake ethical tourism, which is consistent with H2a and H2b, which predict that Chinese tourists’ positive social influences are positively related to their behavioral intentions and satisfaction level, and thus H2a and 2b are also supported.

When the relationship between destination image and behavioral intentions is considered, only local environment is found to be significantly related to behavioral intentions while the nature quality of a location is not a significant predictor for either behavioral intention or the satisfaction level, in support of H3a but not H3b. The result indicates that Chinese tourists care more about the quality of local environment during ethical tourism than about the natural quality of the destination itself.

The significance of service quality for Chinese tourists’ satisfaction also provides support for H4b, but not H4a. The results show that customized services and the supporting services provided during ethical tourism are positively related to tourists’ satisfaction level, but not their behavioral intentions. However, because the significant impact of satisfaction level on behavioral intentions (in support of H5), these service qualities (i.e., service customization and service support) could have an indirect influence on Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism. In addition, to test the mediating effect of tourists’ satisfaction in the relationship between personal factors, positive social influence, image of destination and quality of services and the behavioral intention, we followed the common practice for testing mediating effect by first entering the control variables, the independent variables, and then the variable of satisfaction to examine the change in the significance level of the impact of these variables on behavioral intention. The result shows that satisfaction with ethical tourism fully mediates the relationships between experiences and behavioral intention, between service customization and behavioral intention, and between service support and behavioral intention (i.e., their impact on behavioral intentions becomes nonsignificant, p > 0.05), and partially mediates the relationships between knowledge and behavioral intention and between influence of family/friends and behavioral intention (i.e., the impact decreases but still significant at p < 0.01 and p < 0.001). Satisfaction has no mediation effect on the impact of either attitude towards ethical tourism or local environment on tourists’ behavioral intention.

5. Discussions and Implications

In response to the emerging popularity of ethical tourism across the globe and more sustainable consumption in the age of sharing economy, this study investigated Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions to undertake ethical tourism by constructing an integrated research model considering the impact of individual differences, positive social influence, destination image and service quality on Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions and satisfaction with ethical tourism. Then, using data obtained from Chinese tourists undertaking ethical tourism in three famous costal destinations in mainland China, this study empirically tested the proposed research model. In general, the results support the proposed model, showing that better knowledge of ethical tourism, a positive attitude toward ethical tourism, strong influence from family and friends, and a favorable local environment are important antecedents of Chinese tourists’ decision to participate ethical tourism, and that better knowledge of ethical tourism, more past experiences with ethical tourism, influence from family and friends, as well as customized services and supportive services provided during ethical tourism, are significant determinants of their satisfaction with ethical tourism. The findings of this study also show a few unique characteristics of Chinese ethical tourists. Firs of all, consistent with the group-oriented societal culture in China, Chinese ethical tourists are more likely to be influenced by friends/family to undertake ethical tourism while people from the West are less so [4], which could have important practical implications on advertising to be discussed below. Second, while Western tourists are attracted by the natural beauty or the quality of nature in the tourism destination, our results show that Chinese ethical tourists care more about the local environment such as convenience, local residents’ hospitality and infrastructure, consistent with the results from similar studies (e.g., [7,12]). Third, the results of this study suggest that Chinese ethical tourists seem to focus less on service encounters (no significant impact on behavioral intentions) than would Western ethical tourists who often emphasize service quality in dealing with service personnel [9,12]. These unique characteristics can have important implications for ethical tourism management.

The findings of this study have important implications both for ethical tourism research and for marketing ethical tourism and practitioners in the global context. From a theoretical perspective, this study is one of the only few that examine the ethical tourism in mainland China with a behavioral perspective to explore the driving forces for undertaking ethical tourism, different from other tourism studies that often focus on how to preserve and develop nature reserves, or simply profiling tourists, or investigating the behaviors of tourists from other East Asian regions [4,10,12,19]. While ethical tourism research has begun to flourish and scholars has recognized the emerging non-traditional ethical tourism market in East Asia [46], little research of non-Western model of tourism has yet been created despite the extremely high levels of participation of ethical tourism in non-Western countries [10]. This study will be able to enrich our understanding of ethical tourism in an international context and help bridge the gap of ethical tourism literature [47,48]. One significant theoretical contribution of this paper is that what motivates ethical or sustainable tourism is greatly affected by national culture, one of the most important contingency factors in organization studies, in part because national culture determines what constitutes ethical tourism, and the social norms developed in each unique culture are important determining factors for individual behaviors, including ethical tourism. Considering the increasing popularity of ethical tourism and ethical tourism research in China, this study is able to pioneer the investigation of Chinese tourists and their participation in nature-friendly and more sustainable tourist activities, an important step towards more robust ethical tourism research.

In addition, this study shows that service quality is an important factor that affects Chinese tourists’ satisfaction and behaviors. In a service setting, tourism consumer’ perceptions of service and service quality can be greatly affected by social values and norms deeply embedded in their cultural background [15,49,50]. As a result, cross-cultural differences in service quality and tourist behaviors deserve more attention from both academia and practitioners within the increasingly globalized world economy and support the call for more sustainable and responsible consumption [2,5,15,28,29,49,51]. The complexity of the Chinese market and the strong impact of Chinese culture on people’s behaviors have created an ideal venue for academic research on service quality and other relevant variables in its ethical tourism market. This study is able to improve our understanding of cross-cultural differences in ethical tourism and responsible consumption behaviors, and thus helps build a more robust theory on ethical tourism and sustainable travelling applicable to an international context, and further to help better understand the new relationships between prosumers and ethical tourism in the era of sharing economy.

The findings of this study also have important practical implications for the marketing of ethical tourism. First of all, this study shows that knowledge of ethical tourism and attitude are significantly related to Chinese tourists’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Practitioners of ethical tourism should focus on improving tourists’ knowledge about ethical tourism. Because ethical tourism is still new in China, even across the world, and many tourists are not aware of its existence or its benefits. Marketing of ethical tourism thus has to focus on educating people and helping them learn of ethical tourism and its benefits to the undertakers, the environment and local communities, and then changing their behaviors in ethical tourism [5], which could also indirectly change people’s attitudes towards ethical tourism, and thus increase their intentions to visit natural attractions and recommend this form of tourism to their friends and families.

Second, a relevant factor that is found significantly related to Chinese tourists’ behavioral intentions and satisfaction is the influence from family and friends. Due to the high collectivism in China [24], Chinese people are more affected by others’ behaviors and are more likely to use their significant others’ behaviors as their own behavioral models. As a result, educating Chinese tourists about ethical tourism and its benefits as suggested above is better through word of mouth, and through the network of friends, families and colleagues, rather than through the public media whose influence is not found to be significantly related to either Chinese tourist’s behavioral intentions or satisfaction level in this study. In addition, since past experience with ethical tourism is also affecting tourists’ satisfaction level and further their behaviors, it is recommended to provide free or deeply discounted ethical tours to target groups such as high incomers, rather than spend the money on TV/Radio or other type of commercials that are found having no impact on tourists’ behaviors or satisfaction in this study. Free or deeply discounted ethical tourism activities will be able to build loyal consumer groups who are then able to spread good things of ethical tourism through word of mouth and their own interpersonal networks of friends and families. This would booster the experiences with ethical tourism and create suitable conditions for the influence from families and friends to take effect around these groups.

Third, the findings of this study show that local man-made environments, such as infrastructure and other supportive facilities in the destinations, not the nature quality of the destination itself, is an important aspect of destination image that can significantly affect Chinese tourists’ behaviors, which suggests that Chinese tourists, maybe due to their relative lack of knowledge of ethical tourism, still place much emphasis on pleasant local accommodation and convenience, rather than on the true beauty of the nature at the destination (such as the conservation of nature reserves, preservation of bio-diversity, and the harmony of human and nature). Consequently, marketing of ethical tourism in China should focus on improving the quality of local social environment of the ethical tourism destination including local infrastructure, convenience, hospitability, and friendliness to attract more Chinese tourists, while at the same time, accompanied by continuous educating them on the benefits of ethical tourism and the significant impact of ethical tourism on the sustainability of environmental and economic development at the destinations.

Fourth, while the quality of services has long been recognized as an important aspect for attracting and retaining consumers in a service setting, including ethical tourism, this study finds that Chinese tourists are more responsive to customized services and to the supportive services in their ethical tours rather than to service facility or service encounters. Marketing of ethical tourism in China therefore should focus on providing customized services to meet a variety of needs of tourists such as seniors in order to improve their satisfaction with ethical tourism [52], which could influence their behavioral intentions as well as their experiences and evaluation of their activities, and further facilitate the influence on friends and families through word of mouth. In addition, with more platform enterprises emerging in the age of sharing economy, tourist destinations are also encouraged to take advantage of various online platforms or the internet of things to solicit inputs from potential tourists to comment on and suggest for new programs and customized services, which can improve potential tourists’ perceived control over their touring behaviors to undertake ethical tourism and thus improve the probably of undertaking ethical tourism, consistent with the theory of planned behavior [33].

Future studies should keep on exploring cross-cultural differences in ethical tourism in the international context [7,20]. While this study has its limitations due to its explorative nature, such as limited sampling from one country and lack of relevant literature in the field, this study is an important step towards building more scholarly insights on how to develop and manage ethical tourism when the sharing economy has disrupted service sectors, such as tourism and hospitality, and thus more scholarly contributions are greatly needed. Future research is also urged to explore the underlying factors examined in this study such as overall image, which is a broad category and more in-dept exploration would be able to identify unique features of an ethical tourism destination’s image, including their social environment and nature image. Given that ethical tourism is still relatively new in China and consequently is a relatively recent focus of Chinese academics, and considering that more Chinese tourists have decided to undertake or experience ethical tourism due to its popularity among sustainability-conscious tourists, more empirical research is encouraged to better explore the uniqueness of ethical tourism in China, in particular, the impact of Chinese culture on ethical tourism marketing and tourists’ behaviors in order to improve our understanding of ethical tourism and to help promote ethical tourism in the international context to encourage people to explore the world more responsibly.