Tourists' values and empathic attitude toward sustainable development in tourism

Abstract

Tourism is one of the key sectors expected to accelerate the global efforts towards sustainable development, and with this, there is a renewed interest in understanding and influencing tourists’ attitude and behavior. Analysis of data from 819 international tourists using structural equation modeling indicates that values are significant antecedents to empathic attitude towards: nature conservation, fellow tourists, and local community development, as implicit facets of sustainable development in tourism (SDT). The results indicate significant variations in these issues across respondents’ sex, religion, past visitation to nature reserve (s) and environmental club membership. The study concludes that values are central to ensuring empathic attitude towards SDT