The role of objective and subjective knowledge in tourists’ environmentally conscious travel decisions

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of tourists’ objective and subjective knowledge on their decision to use environmental best practices in tourism. This study targets the alignment between objective and subjective knowledge to identify under-confidence and over-confidence in climate knowledge and their impact on tourism decision-making. Design/methodology/approach A survey of early climate adopters ( n = 752) from a US-based travel network and European-based carbon capture provider assessed tourists’ climate change knowledge, attitudes, previous travel behavior and future intentions to engage in environmentally conscious best practices in travel. Using structural equation modeling, a model was developed to explore the impact of objective and subjective knowledge calibration on climate attitudes, past pro-environmental behaviors during travel and future intentions to include best climate practices in travel decisions. Findings The results of this study revealed that overconfidence diminished tourists’ climate-related attitudes. Attitudes were positively linked to past actions and future intentions for climate-friendly travel planning. Overconfidence undermined knowledge translation into action by diminishing climate attitudes. The findings of this study suggested that cognitive biases might be significant in shaping climate-conscious tourism behaviors. Originality/value While objective and subjective knowledge have been extensively examined in the consumer behavior literature, more attention should be paid to these concepts in the tourism literature. This research addresses this gap in the literature and suggests that objective and subjective knowledge should be addressed separately in future research.