ABSTRACT
Studies have shown that contacting with beautiful natural environments improves people's mood and reduces pressure. Environments that facilitate physical and psychological recovery are called restorative environments. Compared with other types of environments, natural sightseeing resorts have the most prominent restorative value, and have attracted the attention of numerous scholars. Tourists' perceived restorative qualities have gradually become a frontier of environmental psychology and tourism studies. However, studies of tourists' perceived restorative qualities are still in their infancy, with limited results regarding various aspects. For example, the development of a tourist restorative perception scale, and the antecedent factors underlying tourists' perceived restorative qualities. Few studies can be found investigating the relationship between tourists' perceived restorative qualities and their post-visit behavioral intention. Post-visit behavioral intention is of great significance in terms of guiding the management and marketing of tourist destinations. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a sharp decline in the willingness of potential tourists to travel. As consumption by tourists shifts toward the pursuit of greenness and health during the continuation of the epidenic, further improving their satisfaction, stimulating word-ofmouth promotion, and strengthening tourist loyalty through physical and mental recovery experience to enable tourist destinations to enhance their competitive advantage, then to revitalize, has become an issue worthy of investigation. By maintaining close contact with destination environment, tourists can effectively enhance their physical and mental functions, produce a sense of satisfaction and increase positive behavioral intention. Thus, it is important to explore the mechanism underlying tourists' perceived restorative qualities to aid product innovation and marketing promotion, and promote the sustainable development of tourist destinations. On the basis of previous studies, we used attention restoration theory to analyze the impact of tourists' perceived restorative qualities. On the basis of the Mehrabian-Rusell framework, we developed a theoretical integrated model including four constructs:Tourists' perceived restorative qualities, tourist satisfaction, post-visit behavioral intention and tourist involvement. The model was tested using structural equation modeling. All constructs were measured using selfreported, multiple-item scales adopted from previous studies. Data were collected from Kanas, a well known nature-based tourist destination located in Altay, China. The questionnaires were distributed by a group of five people on 1-7 August 2019. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 547 completed questionnaires were returned. The results were as follows:(1) Tourists' functional perceived restorative qualities(coherence, novelty) directly and positively affect their emotional perceived restorative qualities(fascination, compatibility, escape);(2) Novelty and escape are key factors affecting post-visit behavioral intention, and fascination and compatibility affect post-visit behavioral intention through satisfaction. Furthermore, novelty, compatibility and satisfaction have a multiple chain-mediating effect on the relationship between coherence and post-visit behavioral intention, while compatibility and satisfaction have a multiple chain-mediating effect on the relationship between novelty and post-visit behavioral intention;(3) The influence of fascination and compatibility on satisfaction is positively regulated by tourist involvement;and(4) The effect of tourists' perceived restorative qualities on their post-visit behavioral intention exhibited a three-stage"environmental stimuli perception-emotion-intention"transmission mechanism.In this study, we analyzes the benefits of tourists' perceived restorative qualities, which provides important references for tourism destination managers in relation to environmental optimization, marketing and brand building. T