The effects of environmental threats and eco-anxiety on tourism destination avoidance: the moderating role of information acquisition ability and resilience
基于情感事件理论，通过实验发现环境威胁通过生态焦虑导致游客回避目的地，信息获取能力和心理韧性分别调节这一过程的不同阶段，为目的地管理组织提供危机后提升游客出行意愿的指导。
Unlike most studies focusing on tourists’ travel intentions, this study, from the perspective of negative feedback, introduces eco-anxiety originating from the field of mental health into tourism studies and explores tourists’ destination avoidance. Based on the “event-emotion-behavior” logic of Affective Events Theory, this study examines how environmental threats influence tourists’ destination avoidance behaviors through eco-anxiety. We employ experimental methods manipulating environmental threats through textual and pictorial materials to validate the research hypotheses. Results indicate that perceived environmental threats at destinations significantly affect tourists’ destination avoidance, with eco-anxiety mediating this process. Tourists’ information acquisition abilities moderate the relationships between environmental threats and their destination avoidance, and between environmental threats and their eco-anxiety, while resilience moderates the relationship between their eco-anxiety and destination avoidance. When encountered with environmental threats, tourists with high information acquisition abilities experience less eco-anxiety and are less likely to avoid the destinations under threats. Individuals with high resilience also tend to demonstrate less destination avoidance. This study analyzes destination avoidance behaviors under external environmental threats, extends the application boundaries of Affective Events Theory and information acquisition ability, enriches tourism crisis management research, and offers practical guidance for DMOs to enhance tourists’ willingness to travel after a crisis.