Values, Beliefs and Pro-Conservation Dispositions in Marine Tourism: Comparing Marine Park and Whale Watching Visitors in Portugal

Marine wildlife tourism offers significant potential for conservation education, yet how different tourism modalities shape visitor attitudes (and whether observed differences reflect experiential impacts or pre-existing visitor characteristics) remains poorly understood. This study examines how different cetacean tourism modalities influence visitors' pro-conservation attitudes and behaviours through value-belief activation. Using a questionnaire-based pre-post unmatched design with 790 participants across two Portuguese Algarve contexts – a marine-themed zoological park (N=499) and an in-situ whale-watching operator (N=291) – we tested mediation pathways within the Value-Belief-Norm framework. Biocentrism emerged as the strongest mediator of differences between tourism contexts, while anthropocentrism and awareness of the ocean vulnerability showed weaker mediation effects. Whale watching visitors demonstrated significantly higher baseline biocentric values compared to marine park visitors, suggesting self-selection effects shaped by prior media exposure, marketing communications, and cultural narratives about cetaceans. Moderation analyses identified that anthropocentrism significantly attenuated the positive relationship between awareness of vulnerability and pro-conservation behavioural intentions. Ceiling effects in measures limited detection of intervention impacts. These findings highlight that visitor self-selection may be more influential than experiential differences in explaining conservation outcomes in marine tourism settings, supporting the value of diverse tourism offerings that can reach broader audiences with tailored conservation messaging. The research advances cross-cultural understanding of marine tourism-conservation relationships in southern European contexts.