Greening gateways: navigating tourists pro-environmental behavior through norms and emotions

Sustainable tourism initiatives depend heavily on tourists' environmental behavior, with their willingness to adopt sustainable practices being crucial for the success of destination marketing campaigns. Grounded on the cognitive dissonance theory and the norm activation model, an integrated framework was built to investigate the influence of green guilt on the pro-environmental behavior (PEB) of forest park visitors, considering the mediating roles of social and personal norms. We also explored the moderating role of positive emotions, providing theoretical and practical implications for promoting sustainability in tourist destinations and encouraging positive human-nature interactions. Based on a sample of 293 visitors from a national forest park in Pakistan, the results showed that green guilt significantly enhanced personal norms, which in turn mediated the link between green guilt and PEB. Personal norms played a significant mediating role in this process. Moreover, positive emotions moderated on the link between green guilt and PEB. The study concludes with theoretical implications for sustainable tourism and practical recommendations for practitioners.