Resident Participation in Environmental Governance of Sustainable Tourism in Rural Destination

Abstract

The rapid development of rural tourism has placed significant pressure on the rural environment, and relying solely on the government and market forces is insufficient for effective governance. It is urgent to integrate endogenous rural forces into environmental governance. The development of social behavior theory offers new insights into exploring sustainable approaches for resident participation in environmental governance in rural tourism areas. This paper, based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theoretical framework from social behavior theory, outlines the entire process of rural tourism residents transitioning from individual stimuli to psychological responses and ultimately to participation in environmental governance. This study combines the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) model to analyze the stimulus factors affecting local residents and jointly constructs a path mechanism model for resident participation in environmental governance in rural tourism areas. A total of 462 valid questionnaires were collected through a survey, and the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used for empirical testing to determine the path coefficients between variables. On this basis, a system dynamics model was constructed to simulate the dynamic evolution of the relationships between variables. This study found the following: (1) In the process of rural tourism, residents’ participation in environmental governance relies on motivational factors at the stimulus level to play a core leading role; opportunity factors act as catalysts, and ability factors serve as auxiliaries; participation willingness at the organism level plays a crucial role. (2) Material pursuit and formal institutions are the strongest single sustainable factors for residents’ participation in environmental governance in rural tourism areas; combinations of variables such as local attachment, governance knowledge, and governance identity have significant effects. It is recommended that future rural tourism leverage government guidance, coordinate interests, and adhere to a collaborative development approach to ensure the sustainable development of the rural tourism environment.