The complex nature of ecotourist experience and its relationship with pro-environmental behavior in a National Park

Background and objective: Despite the increase in the number of studies related to visitor experiences and behavior inecotourism and outdoor recreation settings, little empirical research has concentrated on how to identify the nature ofecotourists’ experiences within national park settings. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the complex natureof ecotourists’ experiences through personal, social, and environmental conditions, and to examine its relationship withpro-environmental behavior in natural environmental settings. Methods: For visitors, a questionnaire survey was administered to 396 adults who visited a national park in South Korea. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient scores were assessed to examine the reliability of ecotourist experiences. The confirmatoryfactor analysis (CFA) was utilized to explore the construct validity of the factor structure in the measurement variables. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were analyzed to examine the relationships between independent variables. Pathanalysis was used to examine the contributions of ecotourist experiences to satisfaction and pro-environmental behavior. Results: One of the most important findings is that ecotourist experiences scale shows relatively acceptable measurementproperties and reasonable levels of fit. The results in the path model represented that ecotourist satisfaction had largeeffects on pro-environmental behavior. Based on the fit statistics in the proposed model, the relationship between themeasurement variables provides a relatively good fit to the data and verify the convergent validity of the measures. Personalfactor of ecotourist experience had significant effects on satisfaction. Additionally, satisfaction had a significant effect onpro-environmental behavior for ecotourists. Conclusion: The findings of the study provide empirical evidence that three dimensions of ecotourist experiences weresignificantly related to pro-environmental behavior through visitor satisfaction in natural environmental settings. Furtherstudy may need to explore the nature of visitor experience and its relationship with behavior of man-made structures indifferent settings.