A new nature-based tourism motivation model: Testing the moderating effects of the push motivation

•In Hong Kong's nature-based tourism, the push and pull motivations of tourists were studied.•The push motivations were found to moderate the relationship between the pull motivations of tourists and their recommendations of Hong Kong's nature-based tourism. This highlights our theoretical contribution.

This research note focused on Hong Kong's nature-based tourism and disentangled the tourists' motivation factor structure. A new tourism motivation model was developed by particularly incorporating the moderator of push motivation. The push motivation was found to contribute to the tourists' future behavior as a moderator. Managerial implications were provided to Hong Kong Tourism Board and industry practitioners to design nature-based tourism promotion campaigns more strategically.