Determinants of Tourists’ Civilized Tourism Behavior: The Mediating Role of Psychological Ownership

Determinants of Tourists’ Civilized Tourism Behavior: The Mediating Role of Psychological Ownership

Civilized tourism behavior is supreme in improving destination image and promoting tourism by encouraging citizens and overseas diaspora. The civilized or uncivilized tourist behavior of overseas Pakistanis has resulted to portray a positive/negative image of the country on global standing. As a core element, national identity compels tourists to behave in a civilized manner. This study explores the role of psychological ownership integrating national characteristics, identity, and patriotism to influence the overseas diaspora’s tourism behavior. It aims to fill the gap through empirical evidence on this subject. This study developed a hypothesized model with three competing models to identify how national image affects civilized tourism behavior. For this purpose, the data were collected through a face-to-face survey from (N=508) Pakistani nationals in Korea. Data were examined using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Indirect effects showed that psychological ownership mediated the relationship between national characteristics and civilized tourist behavior, and virtue of patriotism and civilized tourism behavior. This study contributes to tourism literature investigating several determinants for tourism marketers by analyzing civilized tourism behavioral intention. It offers important guidelines for tourism managers, destination marketers, and policymakers in designing a framework to promote destination image-destination psychological ownership and develop tourist-destination associations for destination communities traveling abroad.