EVALUATING STUDENTS' BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS TOWARDS ECOTOURISM: AN EXTENDED THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR PERSPECTIVE

From an environmental standpoint, ecotourism has been drawn to attention by diverse communities all around the world. This empirical study aims to evaluate the behavioral intention of students by adopting an extended theory of planned behavior model by incorporating environmental concern and environmental knowledge from a developing country perspective. To get realistic output, structural equation modeling has been incorporated for systematic statistical analysis through using SMARTPLS 3.0, where data have been collected from 393 university students through a survey method. From an ecotourism point of view, a number of findings have been revealed in this study, such as students' attitude and perceived behavioral control have significant positive impacts on the behavioral intention towards ecotourism; results further proponed that environmental concerns have a significant effect on attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention towards ecotourism, environmental knowledge had no significant effect on the behavioral intention towards ecotourism. Finally, it had a positive impact on attitude towards ecotourism, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. On the basis of constructive analysis, theoretical and practical implications are depicted in the form of a contribution of knowledge, which will add value to the decision-making process of various stakeholders.