Tourists’ Pro-environmental behaviour: Investigating the effect of aesthetic experience by developing a harmonious natural landscape

Given the importance to society of encouraging pro-environmental behaviors developed in a tourism setting, encouraging tourists to perform in an environmentally responsible manner is becoming a significant undertaking for the tourism sector. This paper highlights the importance of creating a harmonious natural environment to increase tourists’ perceived aesthetic experiences in enhancing their environmental protection awareness and behaviours in the destination. Three experiments were conducted to systematically analyse how harmonious natural landscape performs as aesthetic experience, impacting on the psychological process of tourists, as well as their pro-environmental behavioural intentions. The data results showed that a high level of harmonious natural landscape was more effective than a low level of harmonious natural landscape in promoting positive place affect and biospheric value orientation, which in turn results in stronger pro-environmental behaviour. The perceived threat has a positive moderating effect on the mediating relationship. Specifically, when tourists face greater perceived threats, place affect has a more significant effect on biospheric value orientation. This study not only contributes to the theoretical framework of the relationship between aesthetic experiences and tourist behaviour in the field of sustainable tourism, but also provides practical guidance for environmental protection strategies in tourist destinations.