Assessing the Role of Ecotourism Training in Changing Participants' Pro-Environmental Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour

Abstract

Ecotourism training is usually considered to be undertaken only by tourism practitioners for professional development. However, ecotourism training has a more important role to play, as it could be adopted as a long-term strategy for environmental conservation by altering people's attitudes and behaviours towards greater environmental responsibility. In this study, the role of ecotourism training with respect to pro-environmental knowledge enhancement as well as attitude and behavioural changes is investigated. A questionnaire survey was conducted on participants of an ecotourism training programme. Participants' environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours were evaluated using a pre-and post-test method. The results indicated that participants demonstrated a significant increase in environmental knowledge after the training. Moreover, participants' demographic characteristics such as age group, occupation and salary are significantly associated with the improvement in knowledge, change in pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. Participants tend to adopt environmentally responsible attitudes and behaviours after completion of ecotourism training.

The Effect of Nature-based Tourism, Destination Attachment and Property Ownership on Environmental-friendliness of Visitors: A Study in Thailand

“…They found that indirect experience (classroom setting) led to growth in knowledge while direct experience (wilderness setting) initiates real attitude and behavior development. Cheung and Fok (2014) found that ecotourism training increased pro-environment knowledge, attitude and behavior, although they do not make any comparison with direct experience. Fietkau and Kessel (1981) discuss how knowledge acts as a modifier of attitudes and values, and attitudes and values can influence pro-environment behaviors.…”

“…Brehm et al (2013) also talk about "environmental worldview" in regions. Cheung and Fok (2014) simply ask about concern for environmental issues and for nature conservation.…”

“…Current research generally follows such concepts, even if not explicitly based on formal definitions. For example, Cheung and Fok (2014) measure pro-environment behavior by simply asking a few questions about what people do in terms of changing their lifestyles, taking concrete actions, choosing environmentally friendly products and working for conservation. Eagly and Chaiken (1998) define an attitude as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.…”

Understanding residents’ environmental knowledge in a metropolitan city of Hong Kong, China

“…The discrepancy in the knowledge levels between younger and older respondents may be because younger respondents have more access to environmental information through school and mass media (Brothers, Fortner, and Mayer 1991;Lee 1997;2000;Tang 2004;Cheung 2010). Furthermore, younger people have generally had more opportunities to receive environmental-related information through informal and formal education in schools (Cheung 2010;Cheung and Fok 2013). In addition, many environmental campaigns and programmes have recently been implemented and promoted by NGOs through digital media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Weibo, all of which have heavily been used as channels to promote environmental issues.…”

Expectations and willingness-to-pay for ecotourism services in Hong Kong’s conservation areas

“…A self-reporting approach, adapted from Cheung and Fok (2013a), was used to evaluate respondents' ecotourism knowledge. Respondents were asked to rank their own ecotourism knowledge using a five-point Likert scale, with scale 1 corresponding to no knowledge and 5 to excellent knowledge.…”