From awareness to enactment: tourist volitional regulation and destination social responsibility

Abstract

Despite growing emphasis on destination social responsibility (DSR), responsible conduct often weakens at the point of tourist consumption. This study adopts a volitional-regulatory perspective, conceptualising enactment as in-situ executive control under competing goals. Drawing on qualitative interviews and a scenario-based quasi-experiment conducted in two responsibility-salient destinations in Vietnam, the findings identify four volitional regulatory elements that shape DSR enactment. The study demonstrates how experience design can either strain or support volitional regulation, offering a process-based explanation for the persistent intention–enactment gap in responsible tourism.