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Explora: Environment
and Resource Carbon neutrality and low-carbon behavior in space tourism

a “COVID-19 positive information awareness-travel comprises six constructs and 24 items, including questions
motivation-behavioral intention” pathway. This literature on LCM (five items), 29,32,47 low-carbon space tourism
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underscores the mediating factor of tourism motivation. awareness (five items), 22,48,49 low-carbon space tourism
Therefore, we posit that tourism motivation, specifically behavioral intention (three items), 50-52 and perceived
low-carbon tourism motivation, serves as a mediating intensity of the “carbon neutrality” in space tourism (11
variable, and the emerging concept of low-carbon space items). Reliability and validity tests were conducted to
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tourism motivation merits inclusion in this discussion. confirm a qualified measurement tool utilizing a seven-
Therefore, the hypothesis is drawn: point Likert scale ranging from 1 denoting strongly
H : Tourists’ low-carbon motivation has a mediating effect disagree to 7 indicating strongly agree ; (Appendix).
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between the perceived carbon neutrality goal and low-
carbon tourism behavioral intention in space tourism. 3.2. Data collection
As few tourists have traveled to space, and the costs
2.6. The mediating effect between low-carbon entailed are exorbitant, the interviewees surveyed were all
awareness and behavioral intention potential tourists willing to travel to space, mainly students
Integrating the “dual carbon” strategy into low-carbon from Macao and Zhuhai.
tourism requires public recognition of carbon neutrality. Data were collected from November to December
In the framework of “Awareness-Willingness-Behavior,” 2023 through online platforms (Xiaohongshu, WeChat,
awareness serves as the foundation, willingness as the and QQ groups) after performing convenience and
prerequisite, and behavior as the outcome. 42,43 Domestic snowballing sampling. Individuals aged 18 years or older
research also indicates that low-carbon awareness and interested in participating in space tourism were
mediates the link between “dual carbon” strategies and invited to participate. Five hundred and fifty subjects were
low-carbon willingness. As protective policies aimed at invited, and 550 panel members completed the survey with
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environmental conservation and tourism’s low-carbon valid responses. After the respondents who took <1 min
development, the “dual carbon” strategy and carbon to finish the questionnaire were excluded, the data and
neutrality goal complement well with each other. Guided questionnaire responses of the remaining 416 potential
by supply-side policies, awareness precedes willingness, space tourists were subjected to analysis using Statistical
leading to the proposed hypothesis of the “policy event- Package for the Social Sciences and Mplus software,
awareness-behavioral intention” pathway. Therefore, the and various mathematical and statistical methods such
following hypothesis is drawn: as reliability analysis, validity analysis, factor analysis,
H : Tourists’ LCA mediates between the perceived carbon correlation analysis, common method variance (CMV)
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neutrality goal and the behavioral intention of low- analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM) were
carbon space tourism. used to analyze the survey data.
The research framework is presented in Figure 1.
4. Data analysis
3. Research design and methodology 4.1. Descriptive statistical analysis
3.1. Measurements A descriptive analysis of 416 respondents’ demographic
A multi-item measurement used a survey questionnaire, data revealed a balanced gender ratio (43.3% male and
which was screened from the literature, and the question 56.7% female). Age-wise, young adults (18 – 30) constituted
items were revised to tailor to the investigation of space the majority of the respondents (77.3%) due to the novelty
tourism behavior. 45,46 In this study, the survey instrument of space tourism and the limited travel frequency among

Figure 1. Research framework

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2025) 4 doi: 10.36922/eer.3655