Resource Substitution or Synergy? How Self-Efficacy and Social Support Shape the Experience–Engagement Link in Low-Carbon Tourism

Tourist engagement has redirected tourism scholarship from static satisfaction evaluations toward the interactive, value-creating psychological processes that bind tourists to destinations. Focusing on low-carbon tourism, where success hinges on translating environmental awareness into sustained behavioral change, this study argues that whether experiences translate into engagement depends on the interplay between external social resources and internal personal resources. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), we examine the joint effects of tourist experience, social support, and self-efficacy using survey data from 206 adult tourists with low-carbon travel experience. The results reveal that the average, unconditional effect of experience on engagement was not statistically significant; experience is not inconsequential but conditional, its impact depending on the resources tourists bring to it. Social support negatively moderates the experience–engagement path, reflecting a resource-substitution mechanism whereby abundant external resources crowd out tourists’ direct psychological investment in the experience. This inhibitory pattern is conditional on self-efficacy: for tourists with strong efficacy beliefs, social support becomes a functional tool that works synergistically with the travel experience to elevate engagement. This moderated moderation forms a single conditional architecture that extends COR Theory and SCT by clarifying when internal and external resources substitute for or reinforce one another. In practice, the findings advocate for empowerment-based service design: cultivating mastery experiences and self-efficacy unlocks the positive potential of social support and deepens engagement in sustainable travel.