Ecoturismo no Brasil: comprometimento ambiental e consumo à luz da Teoria do Comportamento Planejado (TCP)

Abstract

Ecotourism, in recent years, has emerged as a field of growing interest and is now recognized as a viable path for the economic recovery of Brazilian tourist activity in the post-pandemic scenario. In this context, this tourist activity, which balances the needs of environmental conservation with economic benefits, presents itself as a promising strategy to leverage sustainable development and the valorization of natural resources in these territories. Considering the importance of this tourist activity for regional development, the general objective of this thesis was to propose a model to analyze the levels of intention of Brazilian tourists to consume ecotourism based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TCP), an important theory of social psychology used to understand intentions and behaviors. Aiming to achieve the proposed objective, the research was developed using a mixed methodology, that is, qualitative and quantitative stages. In the qualitative stage, 21 interviews were conducted, which were duly transcribed and analyzed. For the analysis of this stage, the QDA Miner software was used as a support tool, both for content analysis and text mining. This stage was extremely important, as it was its results that made it possible to construct the questionnaire for collecting quantitative data. Thus, at this stage, all the beliefs that constituted each of the basic constructs of the TCP were identified, as well as the construct developed for this thesis, called environmental commitment. Environmental commitment proved to be a construct formed by five (5) beliefs, namely: contact with nature, environmental structure, local culture, environmental concern, and traditional people. After constructing the questionnaires, data collection for the quantitative stage began, using the Google Forms platform for this purpose. At this stage, the sample consisted of 779 respondents. At this stage, least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was defined as the analysis method, using the Smart PLS software as an operational tool. The analyzes were carried out to evaluate two aspects: firstly, hypothesis testing was carried out to find the best explanatory (reflective) model, and from this model, a reflective model was developed to understand the variables that best explain each construct. Regarding the formative model, it was found that the construct subjective norms (H1), attitudes (H2), perceived behavioral control (H3) and environmental commitment (H4) are significant and positively affect consumers' intention to consume ecotourism. The cognitive destination image (5) as well as the affective image (H6) were insignificant. Therefore, H1, H2, H3 and H4 were supported, while H5 and H6 were rejected. In the case of the formative model, it was observed that for the subjective norms construct, the most significant beliefs are “environmental students and researchers” and “people with reduced mobility; for the attitudes construct, the most significant were: “innovation”, “planning”, “location” and “learning”; in the Perceived Behavioral Control construct, the beliefs “available time” and “knowledge about ecotourism” were more significant; while environmental commitment, only the belief “contact with nature” proved to be significant. That said, the research results suggest that sample participants tend to opt for activities that respect the environment, reflecting essential sustainability and conservation values for ecosystems and local communities, but mainly that enable contact with nature. Furthermore, the results go against many studies that prove the image of the destination as a significant factor in tourists' consumption decisions, which suggests that for the sample, contact with nature is more important than the appearance of the place, indicating that the adoption of sustainable practices and an increase in natural spaces are a path to investment for ecotourism managers.