Environmental attitudes versus behavior of tourism management students: A basis for educational planning and development

Abstract

Environmental degradation though affecting humans is also caused by humans. Hence, their environmental attitude and behavior are important to achieve environmental sustainability. For this reason, the environmental attitude and behavior of people starting with 392 tourism management students in selected colleges and universities in the Philippines, and their significant relationship have been determined using a descriptive-correlational research design and a quantitative research approach. Results show that students have the most positive attitude and the highest level of engagement in terms of energy and water consumption; however, environmental engagement in terms of solid waste management, purchase and use of products, and actual practices recorded low scores. Additionally, there is no significant relationship between the students’ environmental attitude and environmental behavior, which indicates that they could not translate what they have in mind into actual practice hence, a problem that must be addressed. Many studies have explored the area of environmental attitude and behavior; however, this is one of the few that have focused on tourism management students, which makes it significant given that environmental conservation and ecotourism are the courses these students study and the fact that most popular tourism attractions in the Philippines are nature-based.

Keywords

• environmental education
• sustainable tourism
• tourism students
• environmental conservation and sustainability