Pro-Environmental Behavior of Tourists in Ecotourism Scenic Spots: The Promoting Role of Tourist Experience Quality in Place Attachment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript, "Pro-environment behavior of tourists in ecotourism scenic spots", addresses important issues in ecotourism and I believe that the findings of this study can contribute the improvement of ecotourism in the future. 

However, there ar eseveral concerns in this manuscript.

1. The study claims to use EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) and SEM (Structural Equation Modeling), but there is no detailed reporting on the key findings from EFA or what new insights were obtained through EFA. What is the role of EFA in this study?

2. In SEM, discriminant validity is a very important procedure, but this study lacks reporting on this aspect. What are the correlations between the variables? It is necessary to clarify if there are any issues with the measurement model.

3. Surveys were conducted in two regions, but the results from these two regions were simply reported separately. What is the reason for choosing these two regions in this study? Do the survey results from the two regions exhibit homogeneity? If not, what causes the differences in the results between these two regions?

Additionally, in the introduction, there are structural issues such as the definition of pro-environmental behavior appearing later and the research gap being discussed afterwards.

There are also typos and editing issues (e.g., line 40, line 60-62), which need to be reviewed comprehensively.

Author Response

Dear expert, thank you very much for your review of this article. Based on your suggestion, we have made the following modifications and hope that the article can be improved.

1. About EFA

We used EFA to reduce the dimensions of touristic experience quality, place attachment, and pro environmental behavior, and extracted 5, 2, and 1 common factors respectively. Due to the consistent research results of EFA and SEM, we neglected the report of the statistical results of EFA. Thank you very much for your suggestion. In this revision, we have added an explanation of the EFA results. The research results of EFA are shown in Table 2 and Table 8 respectively.

2. Thank you for your suggestion. We have added a discriminant validity test for SEM, please refer to Table 4 and Table 10.

3. About two studies

Study 2 is actually a robustness test of Study 1, which changes the multi-angle analysis of research samples to ensure the reliability of research results. This study confirms that the research results of two scenic spots are consistent, improving the reliability of the research results.

4. We have revised the introduction and thoroughly reviewed the manuscript.

Thanks for your suggestions. We have made revisions one by one and hope that this article meets the requirements for publication.   Kind regards, Dr. Wang

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

While this is a generally well written article, it does not have a clear theoretical framework and this means that the hypotheses generated are not clear, logically connected or very interesting.  There seems to be an increasing number of papers like this one, that demonstrate reasonable understanding of research methods but that appear to be driven by a very formulaic approach rather than the identification for genuinely interesting research question that extends the area.  The formula seems to be - select 3 or 4 variables, define them vary vaguely, offer just enough references to show that someone ese has studied them, describe them but not critique them, connect them in a very vague way of an old theory, pick some simple measures of these variables, pop them all into a survey and run some structural equation modelling.  But there is no justification given as to why those variables have been chosen , out of the all the possibilities that exist in the wider literature, the variables are often poorly or vaguely defined, if they are defined at all, the links between them are never clearly set out, the use of the specific theory is never properly justified and no critical evaluation of either the chosen variables or the theory is provided.  That is definitely the case in the present study. 

The basic argument made in this paper that a positive onsite experience, can generate positive emotions and encourage place attachment, which in turn support pro-conservation attitudes that then support more pro-environmental behaviour is not new – its bene around in the literature on visitor management, especially in natural environments, for nearly 70 years. What we do know from a large body of evidence is that there are many other variables that influences this set of relationships including motivations for visiting, personality variables, previous experience with the specific site or other similar sites, the quality of information provided about appropriate environmental behaviours, the activities engaged in, the presence and quality of environmental education, and the systems to support engagement in the activity. Consequently, the basic study reported in the present paper at best seeks to provide some limited evidence to support a well-established link.  This is the first weakness of the aper – it is not studying anything new or potentially interesting.

The second weakness is that the variables of place attachment, place dependence (which is actually measured as if it is place preference) and place identity are never properly defined, place dependence is never defined at all. These are not subjected to any critical analysis and no clear links are provided as how they are theoretically connected teach other. There is a considerable literature on how definitions of place attachment and place identity differ across areas and disciplines and that how the relationships between these two variables is very unclear.   The choice of theory is not justified and in this case TPB is not really connected to any of the place variables because it is totally about the attitudes that people bring with them, not the onsite experience at all. Thus, there is no justification given for the choice of variables and no clear or logical link between the variables chosen and the theory mentioned (also not properly defined, justified or critiqued).  This means that the model presented in Figure 1 is not logical, not based on existing evidence and not really, very useful. Further, that model has now replaced place attachment with place identity and place dependence with no real explanation.

The third weakness is in the measures. A set of dimensions of experience appear in Figure 1 and then are measured in the survey but no explanation as where these came from and why these dimensions were chosen is provided. The previous literature is presented as some studies with the different dimensions they have used but no clear summary or critique of that literature is provided and so there is no explanation given as to why these five dimensions were chosen. Overall, the choice and measurement of variables is not properly nor clearly explained.

 

The fourth and final weakness is that the study exists in a vacuum. Even a cursory review of the literature on pro environmental behaviour by visitors would have generated a long list of variables that are involved (I have provided a short list of these earlier) but these re simply ignored.  While it is not possible to study all these you have to acknowledge that they exist and either measure them so they can be statistically controlled or design the study so they are held constant.  For example, we know that familiarity with a specific site or other similar sites is a key variable in place attachment – you don’t have to have this as a focus but if you don’t measure and statistically control for it then you have no idea how your place variables emerge and act.  Alternatively, if there are no measures of the actual experience that visitors had – did all the respondents get exactly the same experience?,  were some of them there when it was crowded, in bad weather, with a good guide?  Without some way of ruling out other influences the statistical models don’t relay tell us anything that is valid or useful.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

See comments above

Author Response

Dear expert,

thank you very much for your review of this article. Based on your suggestion, we have made the following modifications and hope that the article can be improved.  

1. Thank you for recognizing our article. In order to enhance the scientific validity of our research, we have conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of touristic experience, place attachment, pro environmental behavior, and their intrinsic relationships. The research hypothesis was also proposed after we read a large amount of literature. Each item in the questionnaire can be traced in literature. We have really tried our best to make the article more rigorous. As you mentioned, there have been abundant studies on the quality of touristic experience, place attachment, and pro environmental behavior, which have laid a solid theoretical foundation for this research. However, there is currently limited literature in the academic community that considers  the impact of touristic experience quality on tourists' pro environmental behavior based on the mediating effect of place attachment. At the same time, there is a relative lack of research on the pro environmental behavior of tourists in ecotourism scenic spots. This study attempts to address the aforementioned shortcomings.  
2. Thank you for your suggestion. The article has added definitions of concepts such as place attachment.  
3. Thank you for your suggestion. We have added explanations of the sources of the variable dimensions referenced, which has improved the scientific validity of variable selection and measurement.  
4. We strongly agree with your viewpoint. According to the book 'Structural Equation Modeling - Operation and Application of AMOS', during the SEM operation, a residual term, also known as an interference term, is added to each variable, taking into account the possible interference of control variables such as location and gender.     Thanks for your suggestions. We have made revisions one by one and hope that this article meets the requirements for publication.  

Kind regards, Dr. Wang

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The last paragraph in the introduction I think is not needed unless it is mandated by the journal. That will save you some words, if you need them.

I like the breakdown of the literature review as well as the obvious connection between the theoretical background and hypotheses in one section.

I would like more details on the scale development, especially "pre-investigation and expert inspection of the scale".

Recommendations should be more practical; how to focus.

Author Response

Dear expert, thank you very much for your review of this article. Based on your suggestion, we have made the following modifications and hope that the article can be improved.

1. We have removed the last paragraph from the introduction.

2. About"pre-investigation and expert inspection of the scale".

Firstly, based on existing research, a preliminary questionnaire for this study was developed. We consulted five graduate supervisors from four universities, including Shenyang Agricultural University, Liaoning University, Northeast University of Finance and Economics, and Shenyang Normal University, who specialize in tourism management, to evaluate the validity of the questionnaire and make modification, and then the final questionnaire was formed. Secondly, we conducted a pre-survey in the scenic area during 9^th to 10^th, September, 2023, and distributed 93 questionnaires one-on-one. In the process of communicating with tourists, it was found that they had a high level of understanding of the questionnaire and filled it out within an appropriate span of time. A preliminary regression analysis was conducted on the pre-survey sample, and it was found that the statistical results were also consistent with the theoretical hypothesis. Therefore, we conducted a formal survey in the scenic area from October 1st to 7th, 2023.

3. Recommendation has been modified

Thanks for your suggestions. We have made revisions one by one and hope that this article meets the requirements for publication.   Kind regards, Dr. Wang

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Analytic part is improved enough for the publication.