Abstract:

Environmental concern and attitudes have significant positive effect on the consumers’ intention to buy green products and services. The purpose of the present study was firstly to develop and test the psychometric integrity of four scales assessing green marketing issues in sport centers: information for environmental issues, knowledge’s for environment issues, environment protection attitudes, and intention to use environmental friendly sport centers. Secondly to investigate the degree to which information, knowledge’s, and attitudes variables can predict visitors’ intention to visit environmental friendly services. The investigation was developed in four stages. In the first stage scales were developed based on Mostafa (2009), Papaioannou (2004), Krosnick et al. (1993), Theodorakis (1994), Laroche et al. (2001) findings and the relevant literature. In the second stage, the factor structure of the scales was explored. Participants were 296 (162 men and 134 women) visitors of a major swimming pool center (17-58 years old) in Thessaloniki, Greece, who completed the five scales. Exploratory factor analysis supported the solution of one factor for the four scales. Results supported that ‘information for environmental issues’ scale consisted of four items (Cronbach’s α = .81), ‘knowledge’s for environment issues’ scale consisted of four items (Cronbach’s α = .85), ‘attitudes for environment protection’ scale consisted of six items (Cronbach’s α = .82) and finally ‘intention to visit environmental friendly sport centers’ scale consisted of three items (Cronbach’s α = .89). In the third stage, correlation analysis revealed moderate to high positive relationships between the four scales (ranging from .45 to .68), thus supporting their concurrent validity. In the fourth stage, a regression analysis indicated that the three variables predicted a significant amount of variance in participants’ intention to visit environmental friendly sport centres (F=43.14, p<.001, R=.610). The results of the present study supported the psychometric integrity of the above four scales, providing a set of reliable and valid tools to evaluate green marketing issues in sport centers. Also the regression analysis results were established the relationship between swimmer's environmental responsibility and a consequence environmental friendly behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Keywords:

Green consuming, responsible environmental behavior, environmental friendly services.