TOURISTS' ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR AND GREENING THE ECONOMY

Abstract

The impact of human behavior on the environment has caused climate and ecosystem changes over the past half century. Addressing environmental challenges through social innovations (SI) initiatives aim to achieve impacts beyond individual levels for the benefit of the general public. That is why tourists' environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB) studies are becoming more relevant, including regions of the Republic of Latvia. The aim of the study is to develop a conceptual model of environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) of tourists for the regions of Latvia. The research used KMO and BARLETT'S, Cohen's Kappa and Cronbach's alpha tests, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Principal Components Analysis, descriptive and Pearson correlation method. Based on the analysis of scientific literature, researches and the results of the survey of 383 respondents, in this paper the concept of the tourist ERB model in Latvia was developed. Model approbation indicated a mathematically higher positive correlation for female respondents over male respondents in all of the research factors, except for connection with gross income per month, when factor experience had a strong negative correlation (r = – 0.790).