Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 966-971
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.134 966
I
NFLUENCE OF
E
NVIRONMENTAL
Q
UALITY OF
T
OURIST
A
TTRACTIONS
ON
P
SYCHOLOGICAL
H
INTS AND
C
OPING
B
EHAVIOR OF
T
OURISTS
Tao Jiang*, Xiaoying Yang
Abstract
With the boom in tourism, the tourist flow has surpassed the environmental carrying capacity of many tourist attractions. This paper aims to disclose how environmental quality of tourist attractions affects the psychological hints and coping behavior of tourists. Several on-site interviews and questionnaire surveys were carried out in Wuyi Mountain Scenic Area. The collect data were analyzed with the aid of Butler’s Tourism Area
Life Cycle (TALC) and psychological perception measurement scale. The results show that the environmental quality of tourist attractions positively affects the psychological perception of tourists, exerting a great impact on their coping behavior; psychological hints of tourists significantly mediate the relationship between the environmental quality of tourist attractions and the coping behavior of tourists. The research results promote the balance between environmental protection and tourism development of tourist attractions.
Key words: Environmental Quality, Tourist Attractions, Psychological Hints, Coping Behavior, Psychological Perception.
Received: 19-03-19 | Accepted: 26-09-19
INTRODUCTION
Human psychological activities are
inextricably linked to environmental changes
and environmental quality. Changes in
environmental quality can widely affect the diversity of human activities (Barnett, Zhang, Leung et al., 2017). The rapid development of tourism has given tourists a lot of opportunities to stretch the pressure of their mind and relax. In recent years, people’s willingness to travel has
risen continuously, which has brought huge economic benefits to the tourism industry, and meanwhile the tourism activities and behaviors have resulted in environmental damages that cannot be underestimated, the changes in the quality of environment can affect the psychology of tourists, which in turn leads to the changes in their behaviors (Lanzini & Khan, 2017). The environmental content of the tourist attractions
School of International Tourism & Culture, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang 550001, China.
E-Mail: [email protected]
is complex and the differences are significant. The environment in some tourist attractions is highly sensitive to external interferences, and the lacking of environmental awareness will result in unimaginable consequences to the environmental sensitive areas of the tourist attractions and accelerate the destruction of the environment in the tourist attractions (Kumaki, Moriguchi, & Myowa-Yamakoshi, 2017). The reduction in the environmental quality of the tourist attractions will cause some negative psychological reactions to the tourists, which mainly manifested as psychological stress disorder. In severe cases, this negative influence will be transmitted and affect the images of the scenic spots and the regions (Rauh & Margolis, 2016).
The environmental quality of tourist attractions directly affects the tourists' confidence in the tourist destinations, even endangers the continuous normal operation of local tourism industry. It will affect the psychological cognition of tourists, thereby impairing the image of tourist destinations and
TAO JIANG,XIAOYING YANG
967
ultimately damaging the normal tourism activities (Brown, Dorfman, Marmar et al., 2012). The coping behavior of the tourists is affected by the psychology and stress of the tourists, the generation of the behavior is a kind of interactive reaction of individuals to the stimulus, the negative psychological effect
makes the individual produce pressure
perception, which in turn acts on the individual tourists so that they respond to the threatening stimulus of the tourist attractions (Kjellqvist, Palmquist, & Nordin, 2017). This paper takes the environmental quality attribute of the tourist attractions as the starting point, studies the influence of environmental quality of tourist attractions on the psychological hints and coping behavior of tourists, and explores the mechanism of the influence of tourism environmental quality on the coping behavior of tourists.
INVESTIGATION ON TOURISM
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND
BEHAVIORS
The study of tourists based on psychological perspectives focuses on the subjective feelings, psychological experiences and behavioral decisions of tourists. The coping behavior of tourists can be analyzed through psychology-related theories (Santiago-Rivera, Morse, Haase et al., 2007). There are many behaviors that affect the environmental awareness of tourists,
including demographic characteristics,
environmental attitudes and personal values, etc. In the traveling process, all tourists have the value of biocentrism, the value of altruism, and the value of egoism, and the environmental awareness behavior is determined by the tendency of the three kinds of values (Uzzell & Moser, 2009). Tourists' travelling motives are to satisfy their needs of returning to the nature, pursuing the sense of freshness, avoiding
loneliness and oppression, and fully
demonstrating their own needs. From the perspective of tourists, the quality of tourism environment has the greatest impact on tourists' psychological perception (Sadick & Issa, 2017). Figure 1 shows the preferences of tourists for the attractions, it can be seen that tourists tend to prefer tourist attractions such as ancient villages, natural landscapes and folk customs. The quality of the environment is closely related to the reputation of the attractions and the
number of tourists. Poor environmental quality
of the attractions will affect the tourists’ mood
to enjoy the nature.
Figure 1
.
Tourists’ preferences for tourist
attractions
ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF TOURISTS’
PSYCHOLOGICAL HINTS AND COPING
BEHAVIORS
Analysis of the influence of environment quality of tourist attractions on tourists’ psychological hints
The environmental quality attribute of different tourist attractions has different
influences on the tourists’ psychological hints
and behaviors. Previous studies mostly used the
questionnaire method for the tourism
attractions and achieved good results (Lange, Steinke, & Dewitte, 2018). This study had chosen tourists from the Wuyi Mountain Scenic Area to conduct on-site interviews and questionnaire surveys. During the interview, if the tourist had not made corresponding coping behavior due to the environmental quality of the scenic spot, then the situation model was used to form stimulus to the interviewees and carried out the interviews. Each person had been interviewed for about five minutes, mainly to understand the influence of the environment of the attractions
on the tourists’ psychology and their later coping behavior, the situation model showed photos of the dirty and messy environment of the tourist attractions and videos of related environmental quality. Figure 2 shows the statistics of the annual travel times of the interviewees in each year. Nearly 80% of the interviewees have the plan to travel 2-5 times each year, and the environmental quality of the attractions does
INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OF TOURIST ATTRACTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL HINTS AND COPING BEHAVIOR OF TOURISTS 968
cause psychological fluctuations to tourists, and present a diversified situation in enhancing the
tourists’ eco-environment awareness and attitude. Figure 3 shows the number of times a tourist has visited an original tourist destination. It can be found that more than half of the people only visited the scenic spot once, 31.4% visited the same scenic spot for 2-3 times, 11.63% visited the same scenic spot for 3-5 times, and 3.49% of the people visited the same scenic spot for more than 5 times.
Figure 2
.
Statistics of number of trips of
interviewees each year
Figure 3
.
Number of trips of tourists to an
original destination
Figure
4
.
A
theoretical
model
of
environmental
quality
and
tourists’
psychological hints
The environmental quality of tourist attractions affects the mood of tourists. The quality of the environment can cause changes in the psychology, mood and behavior of the tourists (Ramsey, Thompson, Mckenzie et al., 2016). Figure 4 is a theoretical model of
environmental quality and tourist's
psychological hints. The environmental quality of tourist attractions has the characteristics of possibility, persistence, controllability, and opportunity. Environmental quality will bring pressure perception and coping behavior to tourists, making them perform cognition adjustment, attention diversion, enjoy and other behaviors.
Analysis of the influence of environmental quality of tourist attractions on tourists’ environmental promotion behavior
Influencing factors of tourists' environmental responsibility behavior include values, guilt,
environmental awareness, environmental
attitude, responsibility perception, group psychology, and behavior willingness, etc. The environmental quality of tourist attractions needs to be considered from the aspects of
environmental values and environmental
knowledge. Environmental values are rooted in the inherent value of tourists, and the environmental values of tourists tend to be ecologically harmonious. Tourists’ attitudes
toward different environments have significant differences in environmental responsibility behaviors, which is mainly manifested in that
positive environmental attitudes can
significantly promote environmental
responsibility behaviors. Figure 5 shows the influence of the environmental quality of tourist attractions on the environmental promotion behavior of the tourists.
The environmental responsibilities of the tourists include environmental awareness,
environmental attitude, environmental
sensitivity, environmental perception,
environmental control system and situational variables. By sensing the changes in the environmental quality, the social responsibility awareness of tourists could be cultivated, and it would promote the self-restraint behavior and environmental promotion behavior of the tourists. The psychological hints of the tourists will drive the formation of social awareness, but the social responsibility awareness behaviors driven by it are different. In the traveling
TAO JIANG,XIAOYING YANG
969
process, the different environmental behavior influence factors of individual tourists are also influencing the differences generated in the social responsibility awareness.
Figure 5
.
The influence of environmental
quality
of
attractions
on
tourists'
environmental promotion behaviors
VARIABLE MEASUREMENT TOOL
DEVELOPMENT AND CORRECTION
Figure 6 shows the tourism life cycle model. The tourism life cycle of tourist attractions
basically follows the Butler’s Tourism Area Life
Cycle (TALC). After the stages of exploration-involvement-development-consolidation, due to various factors, there will be three kinds of situations: rejuvenation, stagnation, or decline, wherein an important influencing factor is the environmental quality of the tourist attractions. This paper explores the attribute composition of environmental quality of tourist attractions. The environmental quality attribute of tourist attractions has an important influence on the psychological perception and coping behavior of tourists, and on-site recording and investigation are required. Table 1 shows the investigation results of the shallow environmental awareness of tourists. According to the survey data analysis, most of the tourists have a strong awareness of environment protection. The psychological perception of the tourists adopted the scoring system, and a 7-point scale was used, in which higher score indicated stronger effect of psychological perception of tourists toward the environmental quality of tourist attractions. The
survey also selected the Wuyishan Natural Scenic Area for the survey. The survey time was a May Day holiday. The survey subjects were mainly women tourists, and the first five subjects were a cultural and educational technician, a freelancer, an attendant, an employee of government-owned enterprise, and a student.
Table 2 shows the tourist's psychological perception measurement scale. The pressure
perception includes tourists’ feeling of nervous
or upset to the environmental quality of the tourist attractions, don't want to encounter the same situation again, or the incident had a great impact on them. Table 3 is an analysis of the psychological effects of the environmental quality of tourist attractions on tourists. The
survey items include “influencing the image of local tourism”, “influencing tourists' confidence in tourism”, “lead to changes in the number of
tourists”, “uncertain impact on scenic tourism”, “influencing scenic area tourism scale is uncertainty”, “the impact on people's confidence in tourism is sustained”, and “the
impact of scenic spot environment on local tourism activities is persistent”. The average
value, standard deviation and correlation coefficient of each item are shown as Table 3. Table 4 shows the analysis of the tourist's psychological perception measurement scale items. It can be clearly seen that the average value of each item of the tourist's psychological perception is between 4.50-5.37, with an average of 5.02, which indicates strong effect of psychological hints.
INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OF TOURIST ATTRACTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL HINTS AND COPING BEHAVIOR OF TOURISTS 970
Table 1.
Survey on tourists' shallow environmental awareness
Survey content Survey results
Option Proportion/%
How to deal with garbage in your hand
Throw trash cans 96.4
Leave it in a garbage-laden place 2.9
Drop it on the ground. 0.7
Are you going to walk through a forbidden lawn or other area?
Yes 7.3
Occasionally 14.5
No 78.2
Table 2.
Tourist psychological perception scale
Dimension Measurement items
Psychological perception
1. Feeling nervous about the scenic environment 2. Feeling upset about the scenic environment
3. The environmental quality of tourist attractions brings depressing effect 4. Don't want to encounter this kind of situation again
5. The incident had a great impact on tourists
Table 3.
Analysis of the psychological effects of the environmental quality of tourist
attractions on tourists
Items Average Standard
deviation
Correlation coefficient
Influencing the image of local tourism 6.25 0.909 0.354
Influencing tourists' confidence in tourism 6.17 0.868 0.508
Lead to changes in the number of tourists 5.43 1.128 0.284
Uncertain impact on scenic tourism 5.20 1.030 0.507
Influencing scenic area tourism scale is uncertainty 5.07 1.097 0.409
The impact on people's confidence in tourism is sustained 5.08 1.133 0.524
The impact of scenic spot environment on local tourism activities is persistent 5.02 1.171 0.455
Table 4.
Analysis of tourists' psychological perception measurement scale project
Items Average Standard
deviation
Correlation coefficient
Feeling nervous about the scenic environment 5.18 1.34 0.680
Feeling upset about the scenic environment 5.29 1.29 0.650
The environmental quality of tourist attractions brings depressing effect 4.76 1.16 0.751
Don't want to encounter this kind of situation again 4.50 1.05 0.690
The incident had a great impact on travelers 5.37 1.15 0.029
CONCLUSION
This paper took the environmental quality attribute of tourist attractions as the starting
point, and studied the influence of
environmental quality on the psychological hints and coping behavior of the tourists, the specific conclusions are as follows:
(1) The environmental quality of tourist attractions has the characteristics of possibility, persistence, controllability, and opportunity.
Environmental quality brings pressure
perception and coping behavior to tourists, making them perform cognition adjustment, attention diversion, enjoy and other behaviors.
(2) The psychological hints of the tourists
drive the formation of social awareness, but the social responsibility awareness behaviors driven by it are different. In the traveling process, the different environmental behavior influence factors of individual tourists are also influencing the differences generated in the social responsibility awareness.
(3) Most tourists have strong sense of environmental protection. The average value of each survey item of the tourists’ psychological
perception was between 4.50-5.37, with an average of 5.02, which indicates strong effect of psychological hints.
TAO JIANG,XIAOYING YANG
971
REFERENCES
Barnett, A., Zhang, C., Leung, K., Mellecker, R., Sit, C., & Cerin, E. (2017). 1891-the contribution and interactive effects of psychological, social and environmental correlates on active travel in hong kong adolescents. Journal of Transport & Health, 5, S15-S16.
Brown, A. D., Dorfman, M. L., Marmar, C. R., & Bryant, R. A. (2012). The impact of perceived self-efficacy on mental time travel and social problem solving. Conscious Cogn, 21(1), 299-306. Kjellqvist, A., Palmquist, E., & Nordin, S. (2016).
Psychological symptoms and health-related quality of life in idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields.
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 84, 8-12.
Kumaki, Y., Moriguchi, Y., & Myowa-Yamakoshi, M. (2017). Expectations about recipients’
prosociality and mental time travel relate to resource allocation in preschoolers. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 167, 278-294.
Lange, F., Steinke, A., & Dewitte, S. (2018). The pro-environmental behavior task: a laboratory measure of actual pro-environmental behavior.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 56, 46-54.
Lanzini, P., & Khan, S. A. (2017). Shedding light on the
psychological and behavioral determinants of travel mode choice: a meta-analysis.
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic
Psychology and Behaviour, 48, 13-27.
Ramsey, S. R., Thompson, K. L., Mckenzie, M., & Rosenbaum, A. (2016). Psychological research in the internet age: the quality of web-based data.
Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 354-360.
Rauh, V. A., & Margolis, A. E. (2016). Research review: environmental exposures, neurodevelopment, and child mental health - new paradigms for the study of brain and behavioral effects. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines,
57(7), 775-793.
Sadick, A. M., & Issa, M. H. (2017). Occupants 'indoor environmental quality satisfaction factors as measures of school teachers' well-being. Building
and Environment, 119, 99-109.
Santiago-Rivera, A. L., Morse, G. S., Haase, R. F., Mccaffrey, R. J., & Tarbell, A. (2007). Exposure to an environmental toxin, quality of life and psychological distress. Journal of Environmental
Psychology, 27(1), 33-43.
Uzzell, D., & Moser, G. (2009). Introduction: Environmental psychology on the move. Journal
