Resumen de Socio-cultural Influences and Intentions toward Environmental Sustainability amongst Undergraduate Students: Evidence from China and Thailand

Kevin Fuchs, Pornpisanu Promsivapallop, Fu Jing

• The prosperity of the tourism industry is strongly dependent on the well-being of the environment. Awareness toward environmental sustainability manifests and leads to the adoption of the concepts to address environmental challenges. Moreover, tourism education is at the forefront of impacting environmental sustainability by educating tomorrow’s tourism stakeholders. The study utilized a self-administered attitude questionnaire as the data source. 785 responses were included in the analysis to compare factors (knowledge, attitude, perceived behavioral control, and intention) toward environmental sustainability between hospitality and tourism students based on different socio-demographic characteristics. The study revealed that gender, nationality, and year of study had statistically significant relevance to the students’ environmental intentions. The findings are discussed academically and the presented implications are helpful for practitioners and educators alike. Furthermore, the article concludes with recommendations to provide institutions with guidance on how to tackle the outlined issues and increase awareness of environmental sustainability amongst students.