Understanding community environmental protection practices in ethnic tourism destinations and its impact on tourist environmetal responsible behavior

When it comes to adverse environmental impacts created by the tourism industry, involving multiple stakeholders, including government departments, tourism enterprises, destination residents, regulators, tourists, and other parties (Baloch et al., 2023), nevertheless, tourists, as the critical party of tourism activities, have always been regarded as the initiator of tourism environmental issues (Wu et al., 2023). Accordingly, although sustainable tourism development is closely related to both of tourist and destination community, previous studies have paid much attention on tourist environmentally responsible behavior whereas have paid less attention to the environmental protection practices of destination community (Wu et al., 20). However, environmental issues and environmental protection practices involve multiple roles within the development of the tourism industry, and relatively little is known about the impacts created separately or jointly by multiple roles outside of tourists in this field.

The sustainable development of the tourism industry actually emphasizes the sustainability of ecological and cultural resources. The ethnic area is a typical tourist destination that relies on ecological and cultural resources, therefore, the sustainable development of the tourism industry in the ethnic area is more prominent (Cheng et al., 2019). Thereby, by emphasizing the role of government departments, tourism enterprises, destination residents, regulators, tourists, and other parties (collectively refer as “local community”), this study aims to explore two key problems: (1) the contents of community environmental protection practices in ethnic tourism destinations and (2) the effects of community environmental protection practices on tourist environmentally responsible behavior.