Russian Journal of Agricultural and Socio-Economic Sciences (Nov 2022)
THE EFFECTS OF NATURAL LANDSCAPE AND ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE ON ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND GREEN BEHAVIOR IN ECOTOURISM INDUSTRY
Abstract
Climate change mitigation has become the responsibility of everyone on earth, therefore all businesses related to the environment not only aim to make financial profits, but must also be able to create an environmentally conscious culture for customers/visitors who ultimately having green behavior. This study builds the concept of environmental values in the businesses of environmental service, especially in the ecotourism industry, which can create visitors' eco-friendly based culture and behavior. This shall be started from conditioning the natural landscape to be the place that can be enjoyed and provides various benefits for visitors, as well as effort to disseminate environmental knowledge to visitors which is expected able to create environmental awareness and green behavior to the visitors. Based on the hypothesis developed into a model, this study aims to test the effects of Natural Landscape and Environmental Knowledge on Environmental Awareness, to test the direct effects of Natural Landscape and Environmental Knowledge on Green Behavior, and to test the effects of Environmental Awareness on Green Behavior. This model was tested on the environmental services business in the ecotourism industry in South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. Statistical analysis was carried out using SmartPLS software version 3.2.9. Result of the study shows a significant effect of Natural Landscape on Environmental Awareness, but the study shows the Natural Landscape has no significant effect on Green Behavior. The result also shows that Environmental Knowledge has a significant effect both on Environmental Awareness and Green Behavior. In addition, it shows that Environmental Awareness has a significant effect on Green Behavior. The study is able to conclude that in the environmental services business, especially in the ecotourism industry, the natural landscape is effectively able to encourage environmental awareness for the better which will ultimately increase the green behavior through intervening variables, namely Environmental Awareness. On the other hand, environmental knowledge is also effectively able to encourage environmental awareness as well as the green behavior of the visitors. Likewise, the environmental awareness has been proven to be able to encourage visitors to behave as green behavior.
