Nudge plus in tourism – exploring reflexive behavior and reflective attitudes

<p><span lang="EN-US">Consumption of travel and tourism, plays a critical role in some of society’s most important sustainability challenges. This is particularly evident as Goal 12 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), advocates for sustainable consumption and production to ensure robust economies while minimizing environmental harm. A range of scholars (e.g. Dolnicar, 2022; Dolnicar & Demeter, 2023; Gössling, 2018; Juvan & Dolnicar, 2016; Salinero, Prayag, Gómez-Rico & Molina Collado, 2022; Seyfi, Hall & Strzelecka, 2023) have contributed with studies that tackle different aspects related to sustainable and environmental behavior in tourism and finding ways to facilitate and promote behavioural change. </span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US">Different behavioural change approaches can be employed to promote pro-sustainable consumer behaviour such as hard (e.g. regulatory interventions) and soft policies (e.g. guidelines). Based on the limitations of soft policy interventions, research has turned to behavioural economics (e.g. Thaler & Sunstein, 2008) to gain a more ‘realistic’ understanding of behaviour beyond the rational choice model. The application of behavioural economics to interventions is often associated with the ‘nudge’, rooted in heuristics and biases research.</span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US">In a recently published paper<a title="" href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1"><span><span><span lang="EN-US">[1]</span></span></span></a> we conducted a study in a laboratory environment simulating a visit to an animal park. The intervention design was focused on promoting long-term behavioural change based on the concept of Nudge+, linking green nudging and transformative tourism experiences. Although the study findings are inconclusive of differential effects of intervention components (due to small sample size, no +-only treatment, 3 interventions in the menu design), a general aim of the study was the use of the laboratory environment to simulate a tourism experiencescape. We used 360-degree video, digital signboards for messaging, and a decision-making scenario. This may serve as a starting point for future research on tourist experiences and aspects of sustainable tourism conducted in a social science lab environment. </span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p> <div><br> <div> <p><a title="" href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span><span><span>[1]</span></span></span></a><span> </span><span lang="EN-US">Yachin, J. M., Margaryan, L., Lexhagen, M., & Ioannides, D. (2024). Nudge plus in tourism: reflexive behaviours and reflective attitudes. </span><em><span>Journal of Sustainable Tourism</span></em><span>, 1-18.</span></p> <p> </p> </div> </div>