| Sustainable tourists have attracted considerable attention from both scholars and practitioners in tourism recently. Unlike traditional tourists whose behaviors need to be "regulated" and "restrained", sustainable tourists spontaneously behave environmental-responsiblly during their visit, and even take proactive actions such as donating, volunteering and public meeting to contribute to destination’s environmental protection. Some scholars indicated that a relationship of "people-park symbiosis" exists between this kind of tourists and the tourist destinations. Tourists, thus, can be regarded as a form of "asset", rather than traditionally criticized "liability", for destination’s environmental protection. Fostering environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) of tourists was considered as the "best practice" in destination management for sustainable tourism. Therefore, investigating the driving forces of tourists’ERB has become a critical issue in sustainable tourism research.While considerable research has been directed toward the factors that may shape or facilitate tourists’intention to adopt ERB, most of them focused on individual-level variables. In this vein, much of the relevant research has emphasized on tourists’ environmental knowledge, environmental concern, value orientation or socio-demographic variables as the key drivers of individuals’ERB. In line with this individual-level paradigm, two theoretical perspectives have been widely adopted in the extant literature. One is rationality-based, considering the decision-process of ERB as a rational choice based on individuals’ evaluation of costs and benefits with regard to performing ERB. Another is norm-based, treating the sense of moral obligation as the key determinant of individuals’ decision to adopt ERB. These two theoretical frameworks have distinct hypotheses, and have been utilized separately to investigate the decision making process of ERB in the literature.In this dissertation, we argue that tourists’ERB has the attributes of "altruism" and "collective action". Specifically, tourists’ ERB can contribute to public benefits, while rare economic or social benefits can be directly achieved by the individual actor. Therefore, tourists’ERB can be regarded as a form of altruistic civic action. Secondly, environmental protection, as a public affair, entails that people corporate with each other, thus needs "collective action" to be effectively addressed. Additionally, the emotional bond developed between tourists and the destination may play an important role in facilitating their propensity to adopt this altruistic and collective action. Based on the above, we propose that social rationality, collective rationality, and emotional reciprocity should also be taken into account, other than individual rationality and norm, in investigating the ERB adopting process. And a new "relational-level" paradigm will provide an overall understanding of tourists’ERB, as well as the determinants of this behavior of tourists toward specific destinations.To address the core issue of "how people-land and interpersonal interactional factors affect tourists’intention to adopt ERB in specific destinations", three empirical studies have been conducted in the context of eco-tourism destinations. In study1, by utilizing the framework of social capital, we theoretically discussed and empirically tested the impact of emotional bond, in-group norm and interpersonal trust on individual tourist’s intention to adopt ERB in a wetland park. In study2, we integrated the above relation-level constructs into the traditional framework of theory of planned behavior (TPB), modifying this classic rationality-based model from individual rationality to social and collective rationality. Study3focused on the altruistic attribute of ERB, and integrated the norm-activation model (NAM) with the above social-interaction level factors, investigating the mechanism of relational factors’ impact on tourists’ERB intentions from the perspective of moral obligation. Though these three studies of theory utilization, modification and integration, four main conclusions were achieved in this dissertation as follows:(1) Tourist perceived emotional bond with the destination, in-group norm, and trust in cooperation are significant in influencing their ERB intentions. Notably, the impact on tourists’two levels of ERB intentions differs across the three relational factors. Specifically, for the general and low-effort environment-maintaining intention, in-group norm (under the collective social capital) exerts the strongest influence. For the high-effort environment-advocating intention, tourist emotional bond with the destination (under the relational social capital) shows the strongest influence. (2) Integrating the notion of social rationality, collective rationality and emotional reciprocity into the traditional TPB can significantly raise its power in predicting tourists’ERB intentions. Specifically, when controlling the key elements in standard TPB, the regression coefficients of emotional bond and interpersonal trust on tourists’ERB intentions remained significant. And this modification of TPB raised its variance-explanation of tourists’two levels of ERB intentions up by12.1%and10.0%, respectively. This empirical result verified our theoretical argument that "rationality" is not limited to individual rationality, but also contains the elements of social rationality and collective rationality.(3) Tourists’perceived emotional bond with the destination, in-group norm, and trust in cooperation are also the precursors of "awareness of consequences" and "ascription of responsibility" in the norm-activation model (NAM), thus indirectly activate tourists’"sense of moral obligation" to adopt ERB toward destinations. This result supports our argument that the cognitive variables in NAM are not only driven by individual-level attributes such as value orientation and environmental worldview as proposed by Stern and his colleagues in VBN theory, but also activated by people-land and interpersonal interactions.(4) The relational factors addressed in this dissertation can activate tourists’ERB intentions through positive "distortion" of both "rational judgment" and "moral judgment". Specifically, behavioral attitude, which reflects the rationality hypothesis of TPB, plays an entirely or partially mediating role in the effect of relational factors on tourists’ERB intentions. And these relational factors also influence tourists’ERB intention via the partial mediation of the cognitive variables in NAM. These findings showed the underling mechanism of relational factors’impact on tourists’ERB intentions, and implied that it is these relation-level factors that trigger both rationality and moral in individuals’decision-making process.Emphasizing on the nature of tourists’ERB of altruism and collective action, we utilized the theoretical notion of social embeddedness, and furthered the discussion of tourists’ERB from a perspective of social interactions. By investigating the impact of people-land and interpersonal interactions on tourists’ERB intentions, we also built a bridge between the traditional "rationality" and "norm" perspectives, which were otherwise separated in the literature.Findings of this dissertation also offer some managerial implications for eco-tourism practitioners. Facing with the sustainability-profitability trade-off in tourism industry, destinations traditionally take "regulatory approaches" such as behavioral restriction, penalties and education to minimize tourists’negative impact on environment. As relational factors such as emotional bond, in-group norm and mutual trust in cooperation may facilitate tourists’ERB intentions, destination managers can go beyond the traditional "regulatory approaches", and try to inspire tourists’ERB through alternative strategies such as emotional investment, in-group norm shaping, and efficacy building. These relation-based strategies are suggested to be efficient in fostering sustainable tourists, as well as achieving sustainable tourism.
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