A Sharing-Based Approach to Enticing Tourists to Behave More Environmentally Friendly. (February 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dolnicar, Sara; Knezevic Cvelbar, Ljubica; Grün, Bettina
• Is Part Of: Journal of travel research. Volume 58:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 241
• Page End: 252
• Publication Date: 2019-02
• Subjects: sustainable tourism -- equity theory -- value-belief-norm theory -- attribution theory -- theory of environmentally significant behavior -- quasi-experiment; Travel -- Research -- Periodicals; Tourism -- Periodicals; Tourism -- Research -- Periodicals; 910.72
• DOI: 10.1177/0047287517746013
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0047-2875

Abstract

Tourist behavior has a critical impact on the environmental sustainability of tourism. The hedonic nature of tourism and lack of an economic incentive make tourist behavior particularly hard to change. Making tourists behave more environmentally friendly would have substantial environmental benefits. This is the aim of the present study. Three alternative approaches are tested. The most successful approach—based on sharing monetary savings with guests—leads to a 42 percent change in one specific tourist behavior with negative environmental consequences. This new sharing-based approach significantly outperforms current approaches of increasing awareness of environmental consequences and of tourist ability to make a change. Tourism businesses should consider replacing current appeals with sharing-based schemes.