Abstract
The present research explores the factors that shape tourists’ willingness to engage in environmentally responsible travel within an island destination context. Using an extended behavioral framework derived from the Theory of Planned Behavior and analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling, the study investigates how environmental attitude, travel motivation, destination perceptions, peer communication, perceived service quality and tourism knowledge influence sustainable travel intention. Responses were obtained from 512 domestic travelers through an online survey instrument. The model exhibits strong predictive capability, explaining a considerable proportion of sustainable travel intention, as reflected by an R² value of 0.680 (68%). Service quality and destination image were not significant, while WOM (β = 0.322) and tourism knowledge (β = 0.288) were the strongest predictors, followed by motivation (β = 0.146) and environmental attitude (β = 0.108). The hypothesized moderating role of tourism knowledge on the attitude–intention relationship was unsupported. These findings indicate that peer influence and environmental literacy are more influential than traditional destination image or service quality in shaping proenvironmental travel behavior. The study advances TPB by validating its extended framework through PLS-SEM and provides actionable insights for sustainable tourism management and policy formulation.
Keywords: : Environmental Attitude, Siargao Island, SmartPLS-SEM, Sustainable Tourism, Travel Intention, Wordof-Mouth.