A study involving a scholar from UTM investigated the links between consumers’ materialistic values, their travel motivations, and their intentions to engage in responsible tourism
A study involving a scholar from UTM suggests that materialistic values do not have to be a negative factor in sustainable tourism development. Contrary to common perception, the research results suggested that “individuals may exert their materialism by activating values and motivations that lead to travel activities that are considered sustainable and environmentally friendly.”
The authors added: “The emphasis is on how to identify ways for materialistic values to coexist with sustainability issues.”
The research was produced by UTM Assistant Professor Dr. Frances Kong Weng Hang and Prof. Donald Chang from the Metropolitan State University of Denver in the United States. Their scholarly paper, “The Influence of Materialism and Environmental Concern on Travel Motivations and Environmentally Responsible Behavioral Intention”, was featured in the Journal of China Tourism Research.
For the study, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of students from Mainland China enrolled in a higher education institution in Macao. Most respondents were born around the year 2000 and were considered part of the so-called ‘Generation Z’ population.
The questionnaire had three sections, covering materialistic value items, travel motivation items, and environmental concern items. A total of 287 valid questionnaires was collected.
The results revealed that materialistic values were “correlated significantly” with travel motivations related to seeking the ‘familiar’ – i.e., things of the sort found in the traveller’s home community – and ‘pressure relief’, namely seeking relief from daily life or work. The findings also showed that pressure relief, as a travel motivation, was “a significant and important predictor” of ‘environmentally responsible behavioural intention’, i.e., the intention to engage in responsible tourism. In addition, environmental concern was found to enhance the relationship between pressure relief and environmentally responsible behavioural intentions.
Understanding materialism
Dr. Kong and Prof. Chang noted in their paper that highly materialistic consumers tended to pursue extrinsic goals such as material wealth and status. “They place acquisition at the centre of their lives; they evaluate themselves and others in terms of the quality and quantity of their material possessions. They share travel experiences that they perceive as conspicuous and that enhance their desire for status while meeting comparison goals. Thus, in the context of sustainable tourism, the impact of materialistic values is of particular importance.”
However, the assumption that materialism had a negative impact on environmentally responsible behavioural intention “might have been over-simplified” by previous studies, the two scholars cautioned. “With careful planning, there is a potential for the coexistence of materialistic values and environmentally responsible issues,” they added.
“Often being viewed as the cause of negative environmental consequences, materialism represents a pervasive value in contemporary society due to economic expansion,” the authors said. They added that travel motivations influenced intentions to engage in responsible tourism; such knowledge could “be used for destination differentiation in aiding the promotion of environmentally responsible behaviour.”
Dr. Kong and Prof. Chang stated that tourism industry practitioners needed to understand what motivated people towards positive environmentally responsible behaviour and which particular consumer segments were interested in travel activities that were environmentally sustainable. “Previous research suggests that as the concern for the environment increases, tourism and hospitality companies could use ‘green’ activities as marketing tools to involve consumers in responsible tourism by emphasising [those ‘green’ activities’] consequences for the natural environment,” they said.
Dr. Kong and Prof. Chang advised that, while tourism industry practitioners might not be able to change people’s personal values, it is possible to “foster sustainability within the context of value orientations that encourage environmentally responsible behavioural intentions and behaviours.” The scholars noted that materialism and ecotourism could potentially be connected, as the latter could be seen as a form of “materialistic lifestyle”.
Sustainable tourism is often coveted by tourism industry practitioners because of its ability to attract visitors with higher spending power and a propensity to stay longer within the destination, capable of spending more locally and creating limited negative environmental, economic, and social impacts, the researchers pointed out. “Luxury travel, a form of conspicuous consumption associated with materialism, has been found to be shifting towards sustainability,” the authors noted. “Marketers could use marketing strategies to align materialistic values with motivations that support and reinforce environmentally responsible behavioural intention.”
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Dr. Frances Kong Weng Hang is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Creative Tourism and Intelligent Technologies at UTM. Her research interests include destination and attraction management, as well as tourism planning and development.
Prof. Donald T. Chang is a scholar in the College of Business at the Metropolitan State University of Denver in the United States. He has a PhD in marketing from the University of Missouri-Columbia in the U.S. His research interests include travel research, cross-cultural comparisons, and marketing management.
Weng Hang Kong and Tung-Zong (Donald) Chang: “The Influence of Materialism and Environmental Concern on Travel Motivations and Environmentally Responsible Behavioral Intention”, Journal of China Tourism Research, published online, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19388160.2023.223253
Editor: Research Corner | A partnership between Macau Business and UTM
