Environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions of golf tourists: The moderating effect of specialization

The products and services provided by golf tourism depend on the natural environment, so the importance of sustainable environmental management becomes increasingly prominent. Golf provides unique competitive advantages for destinations, making the golf tourism market become one of the largest industries related to sports. Golf tourism has both positive and negative effects on the environment; the negative impact is mainly due to the destruction of the natural landscape, as well as the maintenance of the green, which requires a large amount of water and pesticides. On the positive side, golf tourists may be the key factor and actors in promoting and supporting environmental protection. Golf is closely related to healthy and natural environments, and so golf tourists are often keen to promote, support, and participate in the protection of the ecology and environment. This study focuses on golf tourists and we adopt a partial multiplication structural equation model through potential structure analysis and internal consistency analysis. Further, based on the level of specialization, wherein the number of golf trips, consumption expenditure, and average time of stay are used as indicators, the golf tourists were divided into three categories: primary, secondary, and advanced. Brief ecological paradigm (BEP) and Reconstructing tourism ecological orientation (RTEO) scales were used to measure the environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions of golf tourists, and the reliability of the scale was tested. On the whole, the BEP scale score was higher than that of the RTEO scale, and the reason for this difference may be that the environmental behavioral intention is closer to the actual behavior, while the environmental attitude is a more idealized perspective. Further comparison shows that the scores on the BEP and RTEO scales of advanced golf tourists are very similar, indicating that the higher the level of specialization, the closer is the relationship between environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions. The results show that the advanced golf tourists have the highest BEP and RTEO scores. This is because of the difference in specialization, due to which the advanced golf tourists have a stronger sense of environmental responsibility for the golf course, and they are more concerned about the sustainable development of the golf course and tourism. Causal analysis confirmed the relationship between environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions, and the two constructs were confirmed in samples of different levels of specialization, that is, there was a strong relationship between environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions. However, this study did not find differences in the level of specialization among golf tourists. Generally speaking, the income level and education level of golf tourists are relatively high, which are also the two key factors directly influencing environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions.