THE ABILITY-PARTICIPATION PARADOX IN GREEN TOURISM: AN SOR-BASED STUDY OF TOURIST PARTICIPATION IN HA GIANG, VIETNAM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21837/pm.v24i42.2059Keywords:
green tourism, SOR theory, tourist behavior, engagement ability, green perception, green tourism opportunitiesAbstract
Green tourism has become an important pathway for promoting sustainable destination development, yet tourists’ actual participation in green tourism practices remains uneven. Existing studies have mainly explained sustainable tourist behavior through environmental awareness, attitudes, and intentions, but less attention has been paid to how external opportunities and tourists’ engagement ability jointly shape participation. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, this study examines how green tourism opportunities, engagement ability, perceived green tourism, and motivation influence tourists’ participation in green tourism. Data were collected from 522 domestic tourists in Ha Giang, Vietnam, an emerging mountainous destination with strong potential for green tourism development. PLS-SEM was used to assess the measurement and structural models. The findings show that perceived green tourism positively influences both motivation and participation, while motivation is the strongest direct predictor of participation. Green tourism opportunities significantly enhance motivation and participation, but do not significantly affect perceived green tourism, suggesting that opportunities mainly function as motivational and behavioral enablers rather than perception-changing stimuli. Engagement ability strongly increases perceived green tourism, but does not significantly affect motivation and has a significant negative effect on participation. This counterintuitive result suggests that more capable tourists may become more critical when green tourism practices appear inconvenient, superficial, or poorly implemented. The study contributes to green tourism literature by extending SOR theory, clarifying the perception-motivation-participation mechanism, and revealing the paradoxical role of engagement ability in emerging green destinations.
Downloads
References
Abdullah, M., Syed, J., & Koburtay, T. (2024). A structure and agency perspective of sustainable tourism. Current Issues in Tourism, 27(14), 2199 – 2216. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2024.2302072
(Brian) Lin, M. T., Zhu, D., Liu, C., & Kim, P. B. (2022). A systematic review of empirical studies of pro-environmental behavior in hospitality and tourism contexts. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 34(11), 3982–4006. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-12-2021-1478
Demirović Bajrami, D., Đervida, R., Radosavac, A., Vuksanović, N., & Matović, S. (2025). What makes tourists go green? A multidimensional exploration of pro-environmental behavior predictors. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 8(8), 3108–3127. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTI-09-2024-0972
Ezeh, P. C., & Dube, K. (2025). Bibliometric analysis of trends and development in religion and green tourism behavior. Cogent Social Sciences, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2024.2445771
Fauzi, M. A., Hanafiah, M. H., & Kunjuraman, V. (2024). Tourists’ intention to visit green hotels: building on the theory of planned behaviour and the value-belief-norm theory. Journal of Tourism Futures, 10(2), 255–276. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-01-2022-0008
Gao, Y., Zhao, Z., Ma, Y., & Li, Y. (2023). A rational-affective-moral factor model for determining tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour. Current Issues in Tourism, 26(13), 2127 – 2145. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2022.2078687
Hair, J., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2021). A primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) (3nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Han, H. (2021). Consumer behavior and environmental sustainability in tourism and hospitality: a review of theories, concepts, and latest research. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(7), 1021–1042. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2021.1903019
Han, H., Kato, G., Asfaw, G. W., Chiriko, A. Y., Kim, S., & Quan, L. (2024). Fishing tourists’ green behaviors at coastal destinations: an optimum combination of perceived benefits, volitional/non-volitional factors, and emotions. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 29(9), 1133 – 1151. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2024.2379293
Hansen, T., Olk, S., & Thomsen, T. U. (2024). A meta-analysis of sustainable tourist behavioral intention and the moderating effects of national culture. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 32(5), 883–903. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2023.2186825
He, M., Blye, C. J., & Halpenny, E. (2023). Impacts of environmental communication on pro-environmental intentions and behaviours: a systematic review on nature-based tourism context. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 31(8), 1921–1943. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2022.2095392
Ibnou-Laaroussi, S., Rjoub, H., & Wong, W.-K. (2020). Sustainability of green tourism among international tourists and its influence on the achievement of green environment: Evidence from North Cyprus. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(14). https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145698
Jiao, Y., & Wang, Y. (2025). The formation of tourists’ pro-environmental behavior in natural history museum scene: A configuration analysis based on motivation–opportunity–ability theory. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 31(4), 886–903. https://doi.org/10.1177/13567667241247073
Khairy, H. A., Elzek, Y., Aliane, N., & Agina, M. F. (2023). Perceived Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility Effect on Green Perceived Value and Green Attitude in Hospitality and Tourism Industry: The Mediating Role of Environmental Well-Being. Sustainability (Switzerland), 15(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064746
Li, J., Coca-Stefaniak, J. A., Nguyen, T. H. H., & Morrison, A. M. (2024). Sustainable tourist behavior: A systematic literature review and research agenda. Sustainable Development, 32(4), 3356–3374. https://doi.org/10.1002/SD.2859
Luong, T. B. (2025). Integrating the theory of planned behavior with internal environmental locus of control factors to predict pro-environmental behavioral intention in Vietnamese national parks. Tourism and Hospitality Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/14673584251407682
MacInnes, S., Grün, B., & Dolnicar, S. (2022). Habit drives sustainable tourist behaviour. Annals of Tourism Research, 92, 103329. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ANNALS.2021.103329
Nguyen, V. H., Nguyen, T. P. L., Nguyen, T. T. P., & Nguyen, T. V. H. (2024). Citizens’ intention toward sustainable tourism through integrating protection motivation theory (PMT) and theory of interpersonal behavior (TIB). Tourism Review, 79(9), 1525–1541. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-06-2023-0375
Passafaro, P. (2020). Attitudes and Tourists’ Sustainable Behavior: An Overview of the Literature and Discussion of Some Theoretical and Methodological Issues. Journal of Travel Research, 59(4), 579–601. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287519851171
Qiu, H., Wang, X., Wu, M. Y., Wei, W., Morrison, A. M., & Kelly, C. (2023). The effect of destination source credibility on tourist environmentally responsible behavior: an application of stimulus-organism-response theory. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 31(8), 1797–1817. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2022.2067167
Tang, H., Ma, Y., & Ren, J. (2022). Influencing factors and mechanism of tourists’ pro-environmental behavior – Empirical analysis of the CAC-MOA integration model. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1060404. https://doi.org/10.3389/FPSYG.2022.1060404/BIBTEX
Vicente, J. M. (2024). Green tourist behavior analysis and its relationship with the choice of eco-tourism destination: An empirical study. International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks, 12(4), 544 – 557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgeop.2024.11.003
Wut, T. M., Lee, D., & Lee, S. W. (2023). Does Attitude or Intention Affect Behavior in Sustainable Tourism? A Review and Research Agenda. Sustainability (Switzerland), 15(19), 14076. https://doi.org/10.3390/SU151914076/S1
Xu, Z., Yang, G., Wang, L., Guo, L., & Shi, Z. (2023). How does destination psychological ownership affect tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors? A moderated mediation analysis. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 31(6), 1394 – 1412. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2022.2049282
Xuan, D. P., Cam, P. B., Van, T. D., Thang, L. P. T., Ngoc, T. V., & Thi, T. N. (2024). Consumption decisions in green tourism: The case of tourists participating in sports events in Vietnam. Decision Science Letters, 13(1), 191–196. https://doi.org/10.5267/j.dsl.2023.10.001
Yaja, M., Hajoary, P. K., Thenmozhi, M., & Kumar, A. (2026). Understanding Tourists’ Environmental Behavior Through the Lens of Willingness to Change and Motivational Factors. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 50(1), e70172. https://doi.org/10.1111/IJCS.70172
Zhang, Q., Khan, S. U., Khan, S., Khan, I. U., & Mehmood, S. (2024). Greening gateways: navigating tourists pro-environmental behavior through norms and emotions. Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-05890-x
Zhang, Q., Wong, P. P. W., & Wang, L. (2025). The efficacy of the theory of planned behaviour and value-belief-norm theory for predicting young Chinese intention to choose green hotels. Scientific Reports 2025 15:1, 15(1), 14332-. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-99447-1
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright & Creative Commons Licence
eISSN: 0128-0945 © Year. The Authors. Published for Malaysian Institute of Planners. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
The authors hold the copyright without restrictions and also retain publishing rights without restrictions.
