Exploring tourist citizenship behavior in wellness tourism destinations: The role of recovery perception and psychological ownership

Although tourist citizenship behavior (TCB) has attracted increasing scholarly attention, wellness tourism has remained relatively underexplored. Therefore, a theoretical framework was established, drawing on feelings-as-information theory to examine structural relationships among perceived restorativeness, tourist engagement, psychological ownership, and TCB. A total of 400 valid questionnaires, collected in two popular wellness tourism destinations in China, were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling. The results indicated that perceived restorativeness and tourist engagement are significant predictors of psychological ownership and TCB. Moreover, psychological ownership exerts a significant effect on TCB and mediates the relationship between tourist engagement and TCB. Recovery perception plays a moderating role, enhancing the effect of tourist engagement on psychological ownership. This study marks a pioneering attempt to explore tourists' TCB and its antecedent variables in the context of wellness tourism. Its practical implications for the promotion of TCB are discussed.