Research for the development and evaluation of instruments for measuring responsible tourism behavior of generation Y tourists in Thailand

Introduction

In the context of global attention towards sustainable development, driven by awareness of the impacts of development on the dynamic and changing environmental, economic, social, political, technological, and value systems, there is a growing interest in the environment and community context. This shift has changed tourism patterns to incorporate diverse dimensions that cater to tourists’ increasingly complex needs. One of the emerging forms of tourism is responsible tourism, which involves conducting tourism activities with care, considering the environment and community context, and involving tourism providers who use business processes to enhance community well-being and environmental protection. This includes tourism service providers who use their business processes to improve community well-being and environmental protection, which can be done by business organizations themselves or in collaboration with partners (Kotler & Lee, 2005). The approach aligns with several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goals 1, 4, 5, and especially Goal 12, which ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns (Assaker, 2024). Responsible tourism promotes knowledge for maintaining tourist areas, connecting tourism spots with a balanced economy, and supporting the local economy by encouraging local entrepreneurs, supply chains, and sustainable investments that reflect the natural and cultural uniqueness of the area. This may include food and beverages, crafts, performances, and agricultural products (Hagsten & Thomas, 2024). Responsible tourism is a fundamental approach for creating a mindset of awareness among both tourists and hosts, leading to its integration with the BCG Economy Model, which aims to enhance the value of the country’s tourism in terms of biodiversity and cultural diversity through technology and innovation. This shifts the economic system from “doing more but gaining less” to “doing less but gaining more”. This type of responsible tourism contributes to sustainable development in three areas: economic development to improve the local economy and enhance the quality of life in the community; social development to strengthen social relationships, culture, traditions, and lifestyles to prevent adverse changes; and natural and environmental resource development to manage tourism activities to avoid adverse impacts on community natural resources and the environment through fair and necessary allocation and utilization (Leslie & Gelman, 2012). This has made tourism an interest for the new generations of tourists who want to seek new travel experiences and value local values.

Generation Y tourists, born between 1980-2000, make up 40.79% of the tourism market. They emphasize sustainable development, self-confidence, and independence (Bayram & Cesaret, 2021). This group prefers to plan their own trips, adapt their travel plans as needed, and seek unique experiences in new destinations, cultures, food, and activities (Prasongthan & Silpsrikul, 2023). Generation Y tourists are also inclined towards responsible tourism, showing environmental and social responsibility, avoiding activities that harm the environment and local identity, and maximizing the economic benefits for the local community. Research on Generation Y tourists’ behavior and responsible tourism is crucial for understanding and meeting their needs, as they are the fastest-growing and high-spending group (Khoo-Lattimore et al., 2018). According to the WYSE Travel Confederation and United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in 2014, the global market for young tourists was valued at $286 billion and was expected to reach $400 billion by 2020 with 370 million young tourists (UNWTO et al., 2016). This makes it interesting to study this group in terms of motivation and travel behavior.

Previous research on Generation Y tourists’ behavior has often lacked comprehensive academic coverage, making it difficult to use the findings for policy-making or project development. This study aims to develop reliable and valid instruments to measure responsible tourism behavior among Generation Y tourists. It involves creating and developing instruments through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and assessment of validity and measurement invariance to ensure that the newly developed instruments meet stringent academic standards. These instruments can be used for comparative behavioral and tourism research, benefiting community development and economic enhancement and leading to sustainable future growth.

Literature review

The World Tourism Organization (2007) has discussed the roles and activities of alternative tourism. This type of tourism emphasizes social responsibility and environmental awareness, leading to the term Responsible Tourism (RT), which has replaced alternative tourism. RT is defined as “all forms of tourism that prioritize the host’s nature, cultural environment, and the benefits of all involved parties” (Ferguson, 2007). This aligns with Liu (2003), who defines responsible tourism as the type and quality of products tourists seek. Tourists gain more experience and prioritize quality tourism. Responsible tourism is linked to concepts such as fair-trade tourism, green tourism, ecotourism, and alternative tourism. Responsible tourism aims to minimize the impact and maximize benefits to the area, involving key stakeholders such as developers, tourism business operators, tourists, and environmentalists, each with different responsibilities (Xin & Chan, 2014). Responsible tourism has become a popular practice. Although it is very similar to sustainable tourism, “responsible tourism” has become the most popular term in the industry. Tour operators tend to use “responsible tourism” almost five times more than other terms (Caruana, Glozer, Crane, & McCabe, 2014) because its main goal is to make everyone responsible, aware of sustainability, and work together to minimize environmental and community impacts. Studies have shown that most research on responsible tourism issues is considered from the perspective of tourists. For example, Spenceley et al. (2002) found that 66% of tourism operators believe that responsible tourism positively affects local communities. Frey and George (2010) studied responsible tourism management from the perspective of tourism business owners. The study found that, although operators have a positive attitude towards responsible tourism, business operations still need to consider profit costs, making it difficult for operators to focus solely on social or community operations. Other factors, such as cost, competitive environment, and government support, are essential for sustainable responsible tourism. Although responsible tourism is not as widely known in Thailand as mainstream tourism, the country has abundant tourism resources that meet the needs of mainstream tourists. However, these resources are often wastefully used to support a country’s economic development. In 2019, Thailand ranked 31^st out of 140 countries in terms of travel and tourism competitiveness, 9^th in Asia, and 3^rd in ASEAN, behind Singapore and Malaysia. The country has abundant natural resources, infrastructure readiness for tourists, air infrastructure, human resources, and competitive pricing. However, Thailand lags significantly in environmental sustainability, ranking 130^th, and in security and safety, ranking 111^th (Miró-Pérez, 2020). This indicates that the country’s tourism development lacks balance between economic success and the environment. In addition, past Thai tourism development and promotion policies have mainly focused on the number of tourists and tourism revenue, with little consideration for tourist quality. Spenceley (2008) suggests that broader consumer market trends impact ethical business operations and spread to tourism. The emphasis on the environment alongside the economy is something that tourists are beginning to consider. The Cape Town Declaration outlines six characteristics of responsible tourism: 1) minimizing impacts, 2) creating economic benefits for host communities, 3) involvement of local people, 4) conservation of natural and cultural heritage, 5) creating meaningful connections between tourists and locals, and 6) ensuring accessibility and consideration of traditional cultures (Mihalic, 2016). Crans (2010) adds that responsible tourism improves local people’s economic benefits by connecting them with tourists and involving them in natural and cultural heritage management. Stanford (2009) proposed three key points on responsible tourism: 1) it includes all forms of alternative and mass tourism; 2) it encompasses four philosophical aspects to promote and enhance local communities, culture, environment, economy, and reduce negative impacts; and 3) it benefits all involved. This agrees with Goodwin (2011), who stated that responsible tourism aims to change mainstream tourism to make it more sustainable, not only for tourism planners and managers but also for everyone involved, from residents to the government and business operators.

The literature review on responsible tourism highlights its relevance to all three components of sustainable tourism: 1) Environmental Responsibility, 2) Social and Cultural Responsibility, and 3) Economic Responsibility (Kim et al., 2018; Xin & Chan, 2014). The scope of these responsibilities can be explained as follows:

Environmental Responsibility involves the sustainable use of natural resources, reducing waste and excessive consumption, promoting and raising awareness of natural diversity, and setting appropriate tourism levels according to an area’s capacity. All stakeholders, including locals, landowners, business owners, government, private sector, and tourists, must understand and follow the best environmental practices. This responsibility includes behaviors such as consuming only what is needed, disposing of waste in designated areas, planning tourism to avoid pollution, minimizing multiple travel steps, and not disposing excess baggage or waste in tourist areas, such as food containers. It also involves legislation to protect the environment, with clear penalties.

Social and Cultural Responsibility entails local involvement in planning and decision-making at the tourism development level, which is a key aspect of responsible tourism. It includes monitoring social impacts and promoting tourism that enhances the health and education of local communities, linking tourism to other sectors, such as politics, environment, economy, and society. This responsibility includes the behavior of business owners operating with integrity, not exploiting tourists, and considering the uniqueness and cultural context of tourist sites. Visitors must respect cultural differences and diversity by researching destinations before traveling and understanding local traditions, food practices, and religions.

Economic Responsibility means that tourism development should assess economic benefits and decide which tourism forms best develop the economy, choosing those that benefit the local population. It involves training and fair business practices, supporting small and medium-sized enterprises for grassroots development. This responsibility includes supporting community strength, promoting local identity for grassroots economic development, and encouraging locals to own products or services, rather than outside investors.

Responsible tourism is also reflected in SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production (Rodríguez-Díaz & Pulido-Fernández, 2019). Developing and implementing responsible tourism to achieve a tangible sustainability balance requires instruments to monitor sustainable development impacts, such as policies to reduce plastic use, clean energy policies, create jobs, and promote local culture and products. Over the past decade, RT has been a core concept for tourism operators in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia) as a strategy for responsible business planning and management (Mondal & Samaddar, 2021), such as community-valued tourism and environmentally considerate business planning. However, responsible tourism remains an activity and instrument for those responsible, including tourists, business operators, and government agencies that design policies and oversee regulations. It can raise awareness among stakeholders in the tourism system to consider the natural, community, and cultural capacities during travel and design tourism activities aimed at protecting, conserving, and developing these aspects for future generations. Thus, designing tourism activities based on informal education is crucial for raising awareness among tourism system stakeholders, including tourists, locals, business operators, and tourism-related agencies. Mathew and Sreejesh (2017) studied community understanding of responsible tourism and analyzed the mediating role of perceived destination sustainability. A survey of 432 residents from three Indian tourist destinations found that local residents’ perceptions of responsible tourism significantly influenced their perceived destination sustainability, affecting their perceived quality of life. The findings of this study are significant for successful tourism business management, and the sustainability and well-being of local communities.

For biosocial background characteristics, this involves asking basic information about Generation Y tourists, including gender, age, educational level, occupation, income, travel frequency, and understanding of responsible tourism.

The literature review on responsible tourism behavior and factor analysis can be summarized in the research framework as follows ( Figure 1).

Figure 1. Conceptual framework.

Hypothesis

Method

Results

Preliminary quality assessment of the responsible tourism behavior measurement ( Table 1) revealed that out of the initial 45 items, 12 met the criteria with t ≥ 3.0 (Sedgwick, 2010) and r ≥ .30 (Sedgwick, 2012). These 12 items were distributed equally across the three main components: Environmental Component (E) for four items, Social and Cultural Component (S) for four items, and Economic Component (EC) for four items.

The results of Exploratory Factor Analysis using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax Orthogonal Rotation (Jackson, 2005) indicated that there were 12 items with Factor Loadings of at least.400 and Eigenvalues greater than 1. The Factor Loadings ranged from .484 to .855, and communalities ranged from.471 to.761. All weights were statistically significant at a.05 level. The sub-components identified are ( Table 2): 1) Environmental Component (E) for four items with an eigenvalue of 4.222, explaining 35.180% of the variance in responsible tourism behavior, 2) Social and Cultural Component (S) for four items with an eigenvalue of 2.034, explaining an additional 16.950% of the variance, bringing the total explained variance to 52.130%, and 3) Economic Component (EC) for four items with an eigenvalue of 1.199, explaining an additional 9.988% of the variance, bringing the total explained variance to 62.118%. This supports Hypothesis two stating that EFA can explain more than 60% of the variance in responsible tourism behavior (Tucker & MacCallum, 1997; Fabrigar & Wegener, 2011).

The results of the Kasier-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy test showed a value of .824, which exceeded the standard threshold of .600. The Bartlett’s test of sphericity was 1244.364, indicating that the 12 standardized questions had a high level of correlation (Trujillo-Ortiz et al., 2006; Fabrigar & Wegener, 2011). In addition, the overall results of the questions show that all 12 questions that met the criteria supported Hypothesis 1, which states that there should be at least three questions for each component. In this research, four questions were developed for each component.

The results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis for the Responsible Tourism Behavior Measurement indicated that the model fits the empirical data, supporting Hypothesis 3. These indices are consistent with the standard criteria (Harrington, 2009) ( Table 3 and Figure 2).

Figure 2. Consistency of the responsible tourism behavior model with empirical data.

Conclusion and Discussion

These research findings support all three hypotheses by successfully developing and evaluating the quality of instruments to measure responsible tourism behavior among Generation Y tourists through Exploratory Factor Analysis (Fabrigar & Wegener, 2011). The analysis identified 12 valid items across the three main components:

It suggests promoting self-reliant local enterprises using grassroots economics, supported by government intervention in financial education, and securing financial systems, such as savings and small community enterprises. From Phongkraphan et al. (2024), who studied the cost of tourism management, it was found that the establishment of medium and small enterprises contributes to the development of the community economy.

Overall, the instruments used to measure responsible tourism behavior explain 62.118% of the variance in responsible tourism behavior, with an average reliability coefficient of.812 (Tucker & MacCallum, 1997; Fabrigar & Wegener, 2011), indicating high accuracy. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) results further show that the model fits well with empirical data and meets established criteria (Harrington, 2009).