Tourists’ Environmentally Responsible Behavior in Taq-e Bostan Forest Park: The Role of Value Types

Individuals’ environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) which strangely rooted in their values has been known as a fundamental factor for environmental sustainability. However, in the one hand, opinions about the ERB dimensions are scattered and on the other hand, researches in relation to the role of value types on the ERB is scarce in Iran. Therefore, the first purpose of the research is to develop an instrument for assessing tourists’ ERB according to its dimensions and then, developing a value-based model for fostering ERB among forest parks tourists. Simple random method was used to select participators in two sites of the park (western and eastern sites). A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. Reliability and validity of the research tool were confirmed using Composite Reliability, Cronbach alpha, Average Variance Extracted (AVE), and Average Shared Variance (ASV). Results showed that the tourists’ value types don’t similarly affect ERB and each of them has its specific effect. However, the self-transcendence is the main value type for predicting ERB and self-enhancement value negatively and significantly influences ERB. Finally, the model variables explained 85.7% of variance of tourists’ ERB. In addition, our findings indicated that the empirical model is of great power to predict tourists ERB.