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Scholars have been interested in examining what drives pro-environmental behavior. However, only a few scientific studies have been devoted to analyzing and understanding the pro-environmental behavior of those that are on vacation. Therefore, the current paper contributes to the existing literature by employing a text-mining approach to conduct a full-text analysis of 210 articles and (1) describes pro-environmental conceptualization, (2) presents the important topics and studies that have emerged from the literature, and (3) suggests directions for future research. The eight core topics that were uncovered contributed to discussion of the content of publications, related theories, core constructs, methodologies, main authors, and journals. The paper shows that the literature on pro-environmental behavior uses more quantitative than qualitative approaches and uses structural equations or regression analysis to explore the data. The findings also show that researchers tend to employ well-known theories arising from psychology, sociology, and biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract2023 was a landmark year for climate change, with hundreds of climate records broken around the world concurrent with the conclusion of the IPCC Sixth Assessment (AR6) process and the first United Nations (UN) Stocktake on climate action. This special issue builds on the AR6 with three papers on key global tourism and climate change knowledge gaps (tourism and climate policy integration, pathways to deep emission reductions, tourism demand) and nine in-depth assessments of tourism climate and carbon risk in each of the IPCC regions. These important contributions of 65 different authors from 30 countries also supported the first ever global stocktake of climate action in the tourism sector. The papers in this special issue make clear that global tourism as we know it in the early twenty first century will be transformed by the climate crisis. Based on the collective contributions, this introduction to the special issue summarizes the state of tourism and climate change research, sets out a research agenda related to the low carbon transition, adapting to accelerating climate disruption, and climate justice, and emphasizes the urgent need to mobilize the tourism academy in this decisive decade for climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe first climate action stocktake cycle under the Paris Agreement was completed in 2023 to assess global progress on mitigation, adaptation, and climate finance goals. State-driven action needs to be complemented by sectoral efforts, and this paper builds on the first Tourism Stocktake undertaken in 2023 that examined climate action in the tourism sector. First, an expert elicitation survey was conducted to validate and deepen the findings from the stocktaking activity. Second, an analysis of the Stocktake’s 40 metrics was undertaken against six criteria of indicator quality. The expert survey revealed a sector still in the early stages of implementing its climate response, with a consensus that 2030 tourism emission reduction targets would not be achieved. Tourism policy and investment were deemed inconsistent with climate ambitions, and current adaptation is insufficient for projected climate change, so that future impacts will restrict tourism development in some destinations. Analysis of the metrics exposed significant data gaps and a core set of 13 robust metrics to measure change over the next stocktaking cycle is identified. The paper concludes with recommendations to advance sector capabilities and collaboration to monitor progress on climate action for an updated Tourism Stocktake in 2026. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2020, infections with a novel coronavirus were confirmed in China. Two years into the pandemic, countries continue to struggle with fifth and sixth waves, new virus variants, and varying degrees of success in vaccinating national populations. Travel restrictions continue to persist, and the global tourism industry looks into a third year of uncertainty. There is a consensus that the COVID crisis should be a turning point, to "build back better", and that a return to pre-pandemic overtourism phenomena is undesirable. Yet, there is very limited evidence that the crisis has changed or will change tourism beyond the micro-scale. In regard to many issues, such as new debt, global tourism has become more vulnerable. Against the background of the climate crisis, the purpose of this paper is to take stock: Which lessons can be learned from the pandemic for global warming? To achieve this, relevant papers are discussed, along with a dissection of the development of the crisis in Germany, as an example of ad hoc crisis management. Findings are interpreted as an analogue to climate change, suggesting that our common interest should be to put every possible effort into mitigation and the avoidance of a > 1.5 °C future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated an unwillingness among travelers to reduce their holiday flying. Recently, however, a movement with people avoiding and problematizing flying has emerged in Sweden and spread internationally. This paper explores how the rising problematization of flying changes the meanings of holiday air travel in a carbon-constrained world. Using travel magazines and digital media sources, we trace changing discourses (overarching ideas and traditions shaping social practices) of holiday air travel in Sweden from 1950–2019. The paper identifies the emergence of a new discourse (Staying on the ground) and shows how it works through moralization (flying is ethically wrong) and persuasion (emphasizing alternatives) to challenge dominant meanings of holiday air travel as desirable and necessary. While Staying on the ground is far from a dominant discourse, there are signs that it has begun to destabilize contemporary cultures of aeromobility. The Staying on the ground discourse exemplifies how meanings attached to ingrained high-carbon practices, and the policies that sustain them, are currently being contested and rearticulated. Acknowledging that low-carbon transformations are fundamentally forms of social and cultural change, the paper illustrates why practices of carbon lock-in are so entrenched, but also how they might be resisted and open up for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is an important and almost certainly increasing driver of anthropogenic climate change. However, intelligence on the total greenhouse gas emissions related to tourism trips – including travel to and from the destination – is limited, especially at sub-national destination scale. This paper uses an environmentally extended input-output approach to estimate the total greenhouse gas emissions consequent on inbound and domestic tourism trips in Wales, a region of the UK. We use the UN World Tourism Organisation (TSA) concept of visitors and trips to estimate the overall carbon footprint of tourism at around 3.4 megatons in 2019, 8.7% of total territorial emissions. We further compare these results with estimates for 2007 which suggests that there has been a modest reduction of under 2% per annum since 2007, but with significant data issues affecting comparability. Apparently slow progress in decarbonisation, including an increase in intercontinental visits to Wales over the period, suggest tourism here has not yet embarked upon a climate-responsible transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conceptual paper published twenty years ago concluded that sustainable tourism development is an unviable objective. Specifically, it argued that environmentally sound tourism development (sustainable tourism) is essential; sustainable development through tourism, however, is unachievable. Despite continuing alignment between tourism and sustainable development in both academic and policy circles, not only have the intervening two decades proved this argument in practice to be correct, but also there is little evidence of a more sustainable tourism sector. This paper, therefore, returns to the theoretical relationship between tourism and sustainable development, considering more recent transformations in understandings of the concept of development as well as contemporary approaches to sustainable development. Highlighting the controversy surrounding the continuing adherence to economic growth in development policy in general and tourism development in particular, it discusses sustainable de-growth as an alternative approach to development and, in the context of increasing concerns over climate change, the specific implications for tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractSmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) within the tourism sector play crucial yet often underestimated roles in climate change mitigation, contributing to approximately half of the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although the existing literature has examined barriers to climate change action and potential drivers for the involvement of small firms, these aspects have not been comprehensively explored within the context of tourism. The article addresses this gap by conducting a narrative review that analyzes 78 papers and reports published on the topic. The results substantiate a differentiation among barriers, pressures, and incentives. Barriers encompass aspects related to knowledge and personality, understanding and perceptions, management, data, finances, technology, legislation, and community. Pressures originate from costs, customer expectations, and compliance. Incentives manifest in economic considerations, subsidies, marketing strategies, staff benefits, and community advantages. The findings are synthesized into a series of conceptualizations, offering pathways for progress on mitigation. Findings emphasize the significance of legislation and efforts of destination management organizations for accelerating SME engagement with climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Net-zero emissions' has emerged as a common international response to tackling a protracted global environmental crisis. Climate change has functioned, and continues to take place, simultaneously to other crises of different types, durations and geographical scales. While progress has been made in understanding tourism in climate change policy and vice versa, there has been very little work on how tourism features in approaches to addressing other major crises and how these may impact on climate change ambitions. This paper addresses this lacuna by examining how tourism features in concurrent UK government approaches to the climate crisis and to a political crisis, Brexit, between 2016 and 2019, with special reference to aviation as a major pivot between the two. Existing tourism studies have mainly focussed on environmental crises in isolation. This paper argues for greater investigation and consideration of the positioning, coincidence and interaction effects among different forms and scales of crises. Through the Tourism Sector Deal, tourism has been cast as a source of economic growth and resilience after Brexit but, heavily depending on aviation emissions, it has significant potential to confound the UK government's ambitions for net-zero Emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 50 years, Churchill, Manitoba has provided visitors an opportunity to see polar bears in their natural environment. Over the same time period, an increase in temperatures and related reductions in sea ice has negatively impacted the health of polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay. In 2008, the term 'last chance tourism' was coined, linking the demand to travel to the North with a desire to see these animals 'before they are gone'. This creates a paradox as tourists require energy-intensive modes of transportation to reach the Arctic, thereby contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. This paper compares the polar bear viewing industry's total greenhouse gas contribution and tourists' knowledge about climate change with results from a 2008 study and discusses any changes over the last ten years. During the 2018 polar bear viewing season, greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 23,017 t/CO2, an increase from 2008. The results also indicated that although most tourists believe climate change is happening, fewer associate air travel to this — a similar finding identified ten years ago. Findings from this research show that consumption patterns have not changed despite a growing awareness of climate change and its impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an empirical application of some recent developments in the social science of sustainability to understanding sustainable transport behaviour. We analyse talk about holidaymaking taken from interviews with self-defined "eco" or "sustainable" tourists. The focus of this paper explores the ways in which participants understand and reconcile the potential conflict of air transport and the notion of sustainable holidays. We identify a number of discursive strategies participants used to project and maintain positive self-representations in the context of complex, often incompatible constructions of sustainability derived from this particular dilemma. Such strategies are considered as concrete examples of the psychosocial organisation of denial and thus offer discursive barriers to sustainable transport futures. However, the analysis also demonstrates the ways in which some individuals were able to resist or challenge such forms of socially organised denial. The potential implications of these discursive barriers and strategies for sustainable transport futures and the tourism sector are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between tourism and climate change is reciprocal. The effects of climate change on tourism are undeniable. However, tourism and climate change are complex and cross-cutting phenomena that enter policy agendas at different moments and with different discourses. This paper analyses the coherence between the policy domains of climate and tourism at the formulation stage of the policy process, focusing on national and regional government levels and the key touristic offer in Spain - that of sun, sea and sand. The proposed method analyses three dimensions within policy documents: frame significance, policy scope and connotation. Results reveal the imbalance between the two policy domains; the lack of concrete actions and stable mechanisms for achieving greater coherence; and the different conceptions of the issue. The paper considers the causal relationships between tourism and climate change, the consequences of mutual impacts, and the temporal dimension of problem framing. This research brings together three fields of knowledge - tourism, climate change and public policies - and suggests enhancing coherence between tourism and climate policies in order to address the sustainability of tourism destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing concern about climate change and the potential impacts of tourism on the environment, little is known about visitor responses toward climate mitigation strategies in nature-based tourism settings or factors that influence them. This study examined the influence of travel distance and Experience Use History (EUH) on visitor willingness to engage in climate friendly behavior in state parks and their support for management actions to minimize climate change impacts. Following a stratified-cluster sampling approach, a total of 1,775 visitors (69.7% response rate) completed online or paper surveys at 20 pre-selected Missouri state parks and historic sites. Results indicated that visitors living within 100 miles of these locations were more willing to engage in climate friendly behavior, but less supportive of climate friendly management actions, as compared to those living farther away. Visitors' EUH was only associated with their willingness to engage in climate friendly behavior, but not with support for climate friendly management actions. In addition to some theoretical and methodological contributions, this paper sheds light on management of nature-based tourism destinations such as state parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of multiple crises, there is a pressing need to increase knowledge, skills and commitment to sustainability and climate action both amongst tourism practitioners and academics. There is an opportunity to deepen the concept of literacy in ways that not only capture operational aspects of tourism and carbon, but also embrace cultural and contextual knowledge and practices, so that the host-guest relationship is mutually enriching and contributes to regenerating destinations. This conceptual paper proposes a pathway that moves beyond building domain-specific carbon literacy to growing "Green Service Literacy" and ultimately "Regenerative Literacy." The vision of Regenerative Literacy connects to deep ecology thinking and decade-long efforts such as those proffered in the Earth Charter. Ultimately, it seeks to (re-)align our lifestyles with nature and ensure the human footprint remains within planetary boundaries. Changes across the tourism system are recommended to enable this transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper presents an integrative review of how social marketing principles and practices have been conceptualised and applied in tourism studies. A systematic literature search was conducted, which found 41 relevant tourism-related journal articles published from 1971 to January 2024. Thirty-six articles self-identified as social marketing, while five studies did not self-identify as social marketing. Findings show most tourism studies conceptualise social marketing from a downstream or micro- perspective, seeking to influence behaviour change in individual tourists. Studies applying an upstream or systems perspective in tourism are rare, indicating opportunities for future research in tourism to align approaches with contemporary social marketing practice. Often theory and model use are not reported, making it challenging to identify the requisite key success factors for effective social marketing interventions. Not only are the impacts of interventions rarely documented, but they also tend to be short-term. Long-term evaluation of interventions, particularly at the macro-level, is missing. A model of social marketing application in tourism is suggested that integrates approaches across the downstream, community, upstream, and macro- levels. Implications for further utilisation of social marketing to achieve sustainable tourism are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies to reduce air travel demand, including in the tourism sector, are urgently required as air travel's climate impact keeps growing while low-carbon aviation remains a distant perspective. Policy options include flat rate taxes per flight, taxes on flight miles or emissions, or frequent flyer levies, yet little is known about how their distributional impacts compare. This paper examines the distributional effects of various air travel tax options for the UK, informed by an analysis of the distribution of (frequent) flights and associated emissions over income and other social characteristics. We find that 'frequent flights' are even more unequally distributed than all flights and that all taxes on air travel are distributionally neutral or progressive. The most progressive option is a 'frequent air miles tax' based on both the number of flights and emissions. At the same time, some social groups like recent migrants are relatively likely to be 'frequent flyers' even on lower incomes. Overall however, our results show that taxing air travel is far less regressive than taxing home energy or motor fuels. Taxes on air travel, while often portrayed as unfair in public discourses, therefore raise fewer fairness concerns than other types of carbon taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the development of scenario planning for sustainable tourism, from the 1970s to the present day. It outlines the links between scenario planning and forecasting, its role as a business-planning tool generally, and its use in tourism for destination planning and advocacy. The prominent role of models is shown and the evolution from the first generation of forecast-focused models of the 1980s to the new generation of complex, integrative, hierarchical, dynamic and even adaptive models of today is discussed. The paper introduces a series of new scenario planning papers that cover a range of subjects including theorising scenario analysis, counterfactual scenario planning, green economy support systems, climate change scenarios (for ski and coastal tourism), destination environmental footprint scenario tools and transition management as a tool for scenario building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From labels to carbon offsets, various interventions to reduce emissions from air travel have been discussed. If implemented, their effects have been negligible. This is exacerbated by ever-increasing numbers of air travellers. This paper argues that patterns of air travel behaviour are extremely diverse and that empirical findings for predictors are very mixed. Research also points to promising multi-dimensional constructs, which might explain the diverse patterns of air travel. This paper has three aims: (1) investigate the explanatory power of multi-dimensional factors, namely quality of life preferences, lifestyles and geographical context; (2) in addition to norms, values and perceived behavioural control; (3) all in relation to diverse travel patterns, flyers/non-flyers, for short/middle- and long-distance personal air travel. We control for socio-demographic factors. We estimate zero-inflated Poisson regression models, utilising data from 4235 Swiss participants collected in 2017. For short/middle-distance personal air travel, lifestyle, geographical context, personal norms, values, age and income are significant predictors. In contrast, long-distance personal air travel is explained by quality of life preferences and gender. These different explanatory patterns for short/middle- vs. long-distance flights highlight the need to differentiate interventions and trigger points to govern air travel behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between climate change and tourism has been one of the most critical and dynamic research areas in the field of sustainable tourism in recent years. In this paper, a scientometric analysis of 976 academic publications between 1990 and 2015 related to climate change and tourism is presented to characterize the intellectual landscape by identifying and visualizing the evolution of the collaboration network, the co-citation network, and emerging trends. The results show that the number of publications in this field has increased rapidly and it has become an increasingly interdisciplinary research subject. The most productive authors and institutions in this subject area are in Australia, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and European countries. In this paper, we identify the most pressing topics of climate change and tourism research, as represented in the existing literature, which include the consequences of climate change for tourism, necessary adaptations, the vulnerability of the tourism industry, tourist behaviour and demand in response to climate change, and emission reductions in the tourism sector. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of climate change and tourism research to better understand global trends and directions in this field that have emerged over the past 25 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens of the world are calling for climate action at the national and international levels. In those places slow to respond, climate litigation has emerged as a method that activists are using to force action. Of the 700 or so pending cases, the climate litigation presently garnering the most attention is Juliana v. United States where 21 youth have challenged the actions of the federal government for knowingly creating and exacerbating climate change. Others have taken to the streets to challenge government inaction on climate change. In both instances, courts are often left as de facto policy makers. This paper seeks to document the precedent-setting Juliana v. United States case and understand the implication of the actions of young climate advocates as they seek to defend their rights to a sustainable future. The paper also explores such youth and civic activism and inaction in relation to "sustainable" tourism. It calls for better consideration of the needs of children and young people in discussions of climate justice and tourism, particularly the future generations of children and youth who stand to bear the brunt of climate change impacts in the Global North and South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper argues that developing practical interventions of responsible behavior requires a deeper understanding of different segments of tourists with different environmental and psychological dispositions. Dwelling on two socio-psychological theories of cognitive dissonance and the focus theory of normative conduct, 724 Chinese tourists are surveyed and segmented. Three segments namely eco-distressed, eco-pragmatic, and eco-calm are identified revealing different dispositions of eco-paralysis, environmental concern, and pro-environmental behaviors. Complemented by 37 interviews, we found that eco-paralysis does not necessarily mean inaction but helplessness and perceptions of feeling “small” in the face of “giant” climate change while overcoming numbness with small actions. This study suggests that the eco-paralysis of Chinese tourists is manifested at the cognitive-emotional level rather than at the behavioral level. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the varying degrees of cognitive dissonance among different tourists with each group displaying unique environmental concerns and behaviors. It, theoretically, highlights how social and injunctive norms such as government environmental advocacy and traditional virtues [“qinjian jieyue”] stimulate progressive actions despite feelings of powerlessness. Thus, it questions the prevalent interpretation in environmental psychological research that helplessness means inaction by revealing that tourists could still be environmentally proactive despite cognitive-emotional challenges from climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to our understanding of how people's climate change concern and norms influence their leisure air travel. It does so by examining the roles of Norwegians' beliefs about climate change and emissions from air travel, their felt responsibility to limit emissions (personal norm), and expectations and behaviors of friends and family (social norms) in such travel. A representative sample of Norwegians was surveyed in 2019 and 2020 (N = 2842), based on a framework combining institutional and social-psychological perspectives. Structural equation modeling of the data reveals that leisure air travel is habituated and part of a lifestyle, supported by social norms, self-enhancement values and urban residency. Personal norms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from flying are beginning to emerge in Norway, but their effect on leisure air travel is small and only indirect. Our findings suggest the need for interventions to complement and potentially amplify the emerging moralization process and support an evolution of new habits and travel lifestyle to limit the emissions from leisure air travel substantially. The disruption of travel habits by the COVID-19 pandemic might ease such a process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coral reefs provide important ecosystem services as well as economic and cultural benefits to society. Yet they are under significant threat from anthropogenic and natural threats, including climate change. Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is one such reef undergoing significant change. More radical interventions that go beyond traditional forms of management are being considered to help repair and restore the GBR. These are based on science and technologies that have yet to be widely tested. This paper reports on a study that seeks to identify and understand support for such interventions, and to understand the antecedents that explain support. The Norm Activation Model (NAM) was extended with a sample of 468 domestic and international tourists to Cairns, Australia. Personal norms had the largest direct influence on support for interventions, followed by attitudes. Awareness of consequences had a large positive impact on personal norms and a smaller positive impact on attitudes. A negative relationship was found between information and attitudes. Personal norms and attitudes also acted as mediators between awareness of consequences, information and support. No differences were found between domestic and international tourists. The results are discussed and theoretical and practical implications outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has shown that holiday air travel constitutes a typical value-action gap as many people continue to fly despite their concerns about climate change. However, some people do voluntarily reduce their holiday flights. Little is known so far about the role that values play in this decision. This paper examines this question based on semi-structured interviews with participants in local climate change and energy-saving projects. It finds that people who voluntarily reduce their holiday air travel are more ready than those who continue to fly to accept that their behaviour makes a contribution to climate change; that they feel a moral imperative to act regardless of its effectiveness in mitigating climate change; and that they distance themselves from socially dominant norms related to holiday air travel. This paper argues that these characteristics are connected to values of self-transcendence and self-direction, and that in this way values remain important for understanding and supporting low carbon behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United Nations has declared climate change a code-red for humanity and the 2020s the decisive decade to avoid dangerous climate disruption. The 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow, Scotland represents a milestone event and potentially the last chance to keep the Paris Climate Agreement 1.5 °C policy goal within reach. The tourism sector has responded to this critical moment by releasing the Glasgow Declaration: A Commitment to a Decade of Tourism Climate Action. As the third such declaration over 20 years, this paper asks whether it brings the sector closer to an action agenda commensurate with the climate emergency the sector has declared. While the Glasgow Declaration includes some positive advances, we find few themes and recommended actions that were not introduced in previous declarations over a decade ago and inaction on several past recommendations. There is no evidence that the declarations have altered the growth trajectory of sector emissions or influenced the integration of climate change into tourism policy and planning. The climate crisis demands a sectoral response no less than that to the Covid-19 pandemic, and we find the Glasgow Declaration ill-equipped to stimulate the systemic change required by the net-zero transition and accelerating changes in climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tourism sector has recommitted itself to be 'climate neutral' by 2050 through its 2021 Glasgow Declaration: A Commitment to a Decade of Tourism Climate Action. The declared ambition is consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement and net-zero emission targets; however, lacks specific actions by which such a transition might be achieved. The highly influential International Energy Agency (IEA) has produced the most detailed global roadmap to a 2050 net-zero future. This paper examines its implications for the tourism sector. Getting to net-zero is imperative to ensure the societal disruption of a + 3 °C or warmer world are avoided, but the IEA net-zero scenario would nonetheless be as transformative for tourism as the internet was. International air travel and tourism growth projections from the tourism sector are not compatible with the IEA net-zero scenario. The geography of transition risk will influence tourism patterns unevenly. The incoherence of tourism and climate policy represents an increasing vulnerability for tourism development. While any business and destination in tourism can act immediately to reduce emissions, the findings compel a critical new research agenda to determine how the assumptions of the IEA, or any net-zero scenario, could be achieved and how this will affect tourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air travel forms a substantial component of an organisation's carbon profile, and questions around business travel are becoming more pertinent given the accelerating climate crisis. The current coronavirus pandemic, however, has effectively stopped much travel and organisations had to adapt by switching most interactions to online meetings. Drawing on social practice theory, this paper examines changes in staff air travel behaviour observed in a New Zealand government agency, following the nationwide lockdown in 2020. Integrating air travel data, a staff wellbeing survey and 18 interviews, the research reveals fundamental differences in the meaning of face-to-face versus online meetings, the inseparable nature of productivity and personal wellbeing, and the change processes that staff noted when faced with a (temporary) new reality of restricted mobility. Whether modified routines remain or not will not only be influenced by the government's imposed carbon budgets, but also will be a question of organisational leadership, politics, and ultimately the ethics of trading off environmental impacts with other perceived needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces and explores the psychological and social factors that both contribute to and inhibit behaviour change vis-à-vis sustainable (tourist) mobility. It is based on papers presented at theFreiburg 2012workshop. Specifically, it reviews climate change attitudes and perceptions, the psychological benefits of tourism mobilities, addictive elements of mobility and social norming effects, the attitude–behaviour gap (i.e. cognitive dissonance between understandings of, and responses to, climate change), the psychology of modal shifts, the psychology of travel speed/time and psychological explanations for the perceived importance of long distance travel. It notes that anthropogenic climate change is an inescapable reality and that tourism's share of greenhouse gas emissions appears set to rise substantially. There is little prospect of technical solutions adequately addressing this problem. The paper concludes that, while a comprehensive understanding of tourist psychology is necessary to inform policy-makers, it alone will be insufficient to achieve emission reductions, and bring tourism to a climatically sustainable pathway, if treated in isolation. Radical change in the structures of provision is also necessary. That change may take the form of infrastructure planning, including financial and economic infrastructure (e.g. taxation regimes and emission trading schemes) for sustainable mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author reflects on the impact of climate change on tourism. He stresses that anthropogenetic climate change has been increasingly recognized as the major threat to large sections of the society and the environment. He points out that there has been little research undertaken on the impacts of climate change on tourism, thus, resulted in the publication of only a small volume of peer-reviewed research. He argues that studies which are undertaken by climate scientists have shown that it is not only the magnitude of changes which are increasingly unprecedented but also the rate of those changes.

This overview paper examines three areas crucial to understanding why, despite clear scientific evidence for the growing environmental impacts of tourism transport, there is large-scale inertia in structural transitions and a lack of political will to enact meaningful sustainable mobility policies. These include the importance of addressing socio-technical factors, barriers posed by “technology myths” and the need to overcome “transport taboos” in policy-making. The paper seeks pathways to sustainable mobility by bridging the science–policy gap between academic research and researchers, and policy-makers and practitioners. It introduces key papers presented at theFreiburg 2014workshop, covering the case for researcher engagement using advocacy and participatory approaches, the role of universities in creating their own social mobility policies, the power of social mechanisms encouraging long-haul travel, issues in consumer responsibility development, industry self-regulation and the operation ofrealpolitikdecision-making and implementation inside formal and informal destination-based mobility partnerships. Overall, the paper argues that governments and the tourism and transport industries must take a more cautious approach to the technological optimism that fosters policy inertia, and that policy-makers must take a more open approach to implementing sustainable transport policies. A research agenda for desirable transport futures is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognized that contemporary tourism mobility, notably flying, is incompatible with sustainability goals. Fundamental changes in travel behaviour are required. Research shows that environmental values have little impact on tourists' travel decisions and that voluntary behaviour change is unlikely. Therefore, policies encouraging transitions to sustainable tourism require a deeper and more context-specific understanding of factors influencing current carbon-intensive travel patterns. This paper responds to this need by adopting a social practice perspective to explore the gap year phenomenon, an increasingly popular activity for the British youth, often involving multiple long-haul flights. The social practice approach positions young people's travel decisions as not being simply individual, but shaped by existing conventions, normative expectations and facilitated/constrained by available resources. The paper draws on the findings from a multi-sited ethnographic study in England, which involved over 30 in-depth interviews with students and other relevant actors, content analysis of gap year materials and participant observation at gap year-related events. Social influences that shape the current long-haul character of gap year travel are examined, and a number of important actors involved in developing, sustaining and reproducing unsustainable behaviours are identified. The implications for policy strategies aimed at changing mobility behaviour are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although voluntary carbon offsets have played a key role in the response to addressing climate change in the aviation sector, little is known about consumer preferences for such offsets and their offsetting behaviour in Australia. This paper developed and applied a choice modelling study to measure the economic values of aviation carbon mitigation and to identify major factors influencing air travellers' voluntary climate action. Results show that respondents have a mean willingness to pay (WTP) of AU$21.38 per tonne of CO2 reduced in the form of voluntary carbon offsets per person. Female travellers might have a higher economic value of carbon mitigation than male counterparts while climate sceptics who are less likely to be carbon offsetters might in fact hold a higher WTP value than non-sceptical travellers. The findings suggest that in terms of WTP the best profile of offset projects might be renewable energy projects in developing countries, of which resulting carbon credits can reduce company legal liabilities. Positive support was found for mitigation measures by airlines, with technological efficiencies more strongly supported than operational practices and biofuels. This paper challenges previous understandings of environmentally motivated behaviour, and notes that behaviour profiles are still evolving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is widely acknowledged as a key contributor to climate change, but it remains unclear how the tourism industry has been planning for climate change in practice. This paper conducts the most comprehensive critical review of Australia's tourism policy and planning documents to date. The paper explores the complex challenges posed by climate change to tourism and how tourism policy has been adapting over a 15-year period. Drawing on a longitudinal data-set of 477 Australian tourism policy and planning documents at the national, state, regional and local level, this research analyses the strategic discourse on climate change using content analysis and bibliometrics. The findings reveal opportunities, challenges and strategies for the tourism industry to contribute to the sustainable management of climate change. Opportunities include developing more “green” products, while strategies include establishing and/or participating in collaborative climate change schemes and strengthening dialogue surrounding climate change to aid the implementation of sustainable practices. Future research should consider the broader policy-making environment, such as the stakeholders, power and interest dynamics when analysing tourism strategies in relation to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper assesses the state of knowledge of climate change and tourism in South and Central America, with a special focus on the characteristics of the tourism sector, the particularities of climate risks of the region and the sectoral GHG contribution. We conducted a scientific literature review (by region and by country) in Spanish, Portuguese and English using publications in the Scopus and Google databases to the end of 2021. In parallel, we performed a search for institutional publications, programs, and strategies on climate change and tourism in South and Central American countries. This analysis identified the main challenges and potentialities between tourism and climate change in the region. Among the main findings is the limited number of studies and lack of primary data to inform policy formulation and tourism planning. Likewise, national, and regional public policies specific to tourism are scarce, while multisectoral climate plans have only recently been developed and, consequently, are difficult to evaluate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current climate of intense turbulence, tourism must transform to a more sustainable development platform. Yet it remains unclear how the concept of sustainability is embedded at different levels of government policy and planning, and how this has evolved over time. This paper identifies the concept of sustainability as it is articulated in 339 Australian tourism strategic planning and policy documents published between 2000 and 2011. The paper examines the extent to which the concept of sustainable tourism is evident in the discourse of Australian tourism strategic planning documents at the national, state, regional and local levels, as well as the balance of the discourse in relation to sustainability objectives. The results show that the frequency of occurrence of sustainability as a concept has slightly increased in strategies over the past decade. At the same time, there has been a shift in the conceptualisation of sustainability, with thinking evolving from nature-based, social and triple bottom line concepts toward a focus on climate change, responsibility, adaption and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change spells the end of tourism, and tourism is just one, and one of the least important, things to be so very near its end. This situation has emerged because of the global dominance of forms of material engagement that completely misunderstand the distribution of agency in the world. Framing the world as just an external human 'resource' diminishes the many forms of agency that elude, transcend, effect, facilitate and subvert human intentions. Even archetypically inanimate objects, such as stones, are actively constitutive of worlds, thoughts, and lives, including human lives, in myriad transformative ways. This lithic agency is illustrated in terms of the attraction that draws some to visit stone circles, and the atmospheres created by, and felt in, such places. This rather different understanding of a 'visitor attraction' and its ontological and ethical implications exposes some of the inadequate presumptions of our dominant form of life and its destructive atmospheric consequences at local and global scales. The paper employs Material Engagement Theory (MET), originating in archaeology and anthropology, as a way to understand the differences between the reductive assumptions of the Anthropocene and the redemptive possibilities of what it terms a neo-lithic ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aviation contributes substantially to anthropogenic climate change. This paper situates individual behaviour changes alongside technological efficiency gains and policy processes in the search for significant emission reduction in the aviation sector. Using online survey methodology (N = 393) and expanding upon existing psychological perspectives on individual attitudes and behaviours, this study focuses on the social influence on air travel. Considering social identity and global social networks, two new instruments, the Cosmopolitan Identity Scale (CIS) and the Global Social Interconnectedness Score (GSIS), were introduced to capture the social drivers of air travel within standardized questionnaires. Different subgroups of travellers were clustered and compared along external and psychological variables, to allow the construction of more effective policies in the aviation sector. Overall, the awareness of environmental problems caused by flying led to a perceived dilemma between environmental attitudes and travel, which resulted in the engagement with carbon offsets. The global social interconnectedness, built through international experience, led to increased travel to visit friends and family, and an overall increase in flight kilometres. The social identification as a cosmopolitan was related to social media use and predicted flight kilometres directly, implying a particular sensitivity to social norm messages in online campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper engages with the concepts of scapegoat ecology and heroisation to explore social media responses to Greta Thunberg's activism. We sought to understand the broad sentiment towards her anti-flying (flygskam/flight shame) campaign, as symbolised by her 2019 sail to the United States to attend the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Specifically, social media user posts in response to three major news media organisations' (BBC, CNN, and Sky News) Facebook coverage of her trip were analysed. The findings reveal dichotomous responses – the majority are critical and dismissive, which we interpret through the lens of 'scapegoating'; however, a substantial number of posts (about 30%) describe the youth activist as inspirational. We conclude that the majority of people are not yet ready to give up travel convenience for climate change or other environmental reasons, and discuss potential implications for the tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses complex challenges and addressing these requires increasing integration across policy domains. This research developed a framework to assess policy integration between the tourism and climate change domains by examining coverage, scope, materiality and alignment. A database of 101 policy documents was compiled, representing 61 countries over 17 years. Only 37 documents covered the tourism-climate nexus substantially, suggesting climate change has not yet become a priority for tourism policy makers. Considering that tourism makes considerable contributions to and is substantially impacted by climate change, the observed gaps in tourism policy need to be addressed. The paper concludes with some minimum expectations for policy integration, including examples of good practice, and suggests that more effort is required to achieve climate change policy integration in tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallholder farmers continue to make up the largest proportion of the world's disadvantaged. Rural smallholders in the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to climate change, underinvestment and growing competition for land and resources. Strengthening synergies between agriculture and tourism through avenues such as agritourism has been widely discussed; however, very little research has approached these concepts from a sustainability perspective. This case study of rural Ni-Vanuatu smallholders uses the Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework (ASRLF) to explore tourism's potential contribution to improved conservation and food security outcomes. Data collection combined participatory methods such as “storian sessions” with analysis of secondary data. The findings highlight minimal current opportunities for rural Ni-Vanuatu smallholders to gain significantly from the tourism sector in Vanuatu. The shift from traditional gardening systems to cash cropping monocultures is also conflicting with tourism and conservation goals. This paper puts forward agroecological tourism as a strategy for integrating positive conservation, food security and livelihood outcomes for rural smallholders. It defines agroecological tourism as having a primary focus on the interpretation of sustainable traditional agroecosystems which exhibit cultural and heritage significance. Agroecological tourism has potential to support traditional practices, enhance the preservation of cultural knowledge and promote sustainable farming practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Debates surrounding the human impact on climate change have, in recent years, proliferated in political, academic, and public rhetoric. Such debates have also played out in the context of tourism research (e.g. extent to which anthropogenic climate change exists; public understanding in relation to climate change and tourism). Taking these debates as its point of departure, whilst also adopting a post-structuralist position, this paper offers a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of comments to an online BBC news article concerning climate change. Our analysis finds three key ways responsibility is mitigated through climate change talk: scepticism towards the scientific evidence surrounding climate change; placing responsibility on the “distant other” through a nationalistic discourse; and presenting CO2as “plant food”. The implications of these ways of thinking about climate change are discussed with a focus on how this translates into action related to the sustainability of tourism behaviours. In doing so, it concludes that a deeper understanding of everyday climate talk is essential if the tourism sector is to move towards more sustainable forms of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the creation and use of a long-term global tourism transport model for private and public sector tourism policy makers. Given that technology is unlikely to reduce tourism transport's impact on climate change sufficiently to avoid serious dangers, behavioural change is necessary. The model presented here helps policy makers and the tourism sector evaluate behavioural change measures. Such tools to assess long-term (up to a century) policy impacts do not currently exist. Projecting behavioural change over such long periods is difficult with contemporary economic modelling. This paper's model is founded in psychological economics theory and mechanisms at work in product diffusion. It describes the tourism system based on identifiable mechanisms and not on statistical relations with only current validity. It delivers global numbers of trips and distances travelled per transport mode as a function of transport cost, travel time, population and income distribution. The model is based on theories including product innovation theory (Bass model) and prospect theory (psychological value). It has been successfully calibrated to tourism development between 1900 and 2005 and tested against future low and high growth economic and demographic scenario combinations. Implications for tourism travel and climate change are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents the state of knowledge of anthropogenic disruption to the climate system, its diverse ecosystem and societal impacts, and the imperative for and challenges of mitigation and adaptation responses. It is foundational for global climate policymaking. This paper examines the place of tourism in AR6 and reviews its key findings for tourism’s future. Overall, tourism related content declined relative to previous assessments. While notable improvements in content occurred for Africa, visible knowledge gaps remain in the tourism growth regions of South America, Middle East, and South Asia. There remains limited discussion of many impacts, and very limited understanding of integrated impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies at the destination scale. The contribution of tourism to global emissions was omitted, however tourism was discussed in the context of luxury emissions and just transitions. Tourism is repeatedly identified in solution space discussions, particularly for ecosystem protection, but without consideration of the future of tourism in a rapidly decarbonizing and climate disrupted economy. With only 21% of published climate change and tourism literature in the AR6 review period cited, tourism academics should elevate tourism content and engagement in future assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite urgent sustainability imperatives, tourism providers and destination managers are slow to undertake initiatives that enable: (1) an informed public (tourists) and (2) an engaged citizenry (residents) to manage resource use, conservation and climate change. This paper draws on concepts from two renowned political theorists, Carole Pateman and Hannah Arendt, and especially from Arendt's theory of human action, which offers insights for a performative and pluralistic theory of civic engagement, multi-stakeholder learning and collaboration. It helps to explore emerging forms of participatory action and climate change pedagogy in the mountain resort of Canmore (Canada), facilitated by the Biosphere Institute, a local nongovernmental organization, that indicate a strong potential. The Mountain Air program involves schoolchildren and businesses in tackling clean air and idling impacts from local transport (including taxis used by visitors). The results of a door-to-door community social marketing campaign, Sustainable Action Canmore, are also discussed. Detailed and ongoing requirements of participatory action are described, and the results of the two programs are analyzed. Links between governance for tourists and residents are explained, and potential lessons for destination managers discussed. In addition, the paper notes the relevance of the Natural Step program, a comprehensive model for planning sustainable development in complex systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the economic impacts of climate change have been analysed in Australia at the national level, impacts of climate change via tourism activities have been overlooked. It is likely that the induced economic impact through tourism activities is much more than realised, particularly at the regional/destination level. This paper examines the economic flow-on effects of climate change on five selected Australian tourism destinations. While the flow-on effect of impacts on these five destinations is relatively insignificant at the national level, at the regional level the impacts can be very considerable, and those impacts vary widely between regions. In addition to general direct climate change impacts on the economies of these regions, the larger their tourism share, the severer the flow-on economic impacts involved. The paper raises concerns for policymakers that measuring economic impacts of climate change without considering its flow-on effect through tourism activities will significantly underestimate the total impact of climate change for destination regions. Further, when all tourism destinations are taken into account, the flow-on economic impact of climate change could be significant for the Australian economy as a whole. Analyses such as those reported here could form a basis for scenario examination for policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper discusses tourism's role in relation to climate change mitigation and adaptation, at a time when climate change is at the forefront of many political discussions, including the 2009 Climate Summit in Copenhagen, and many business decisions. The development of tourism research in response to climate change in the past 25 years is outlined and limitations are identified. The paper also argues that while growing engagement with the challenge of climate change is evident across the tourism industry, this is still limited and not widespread. The minor role played by tourism interests in the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen is noted and discussed. Questions are raised around the willingness and ability of both the tourism industry and tourists to significantly reduce global emissions. The papers brought together in this Special Issue (Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 18.3) both highlight key challenges that tourism faces in its attempts to better understand and manage the problem of climate change, and suggest valuable ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a paradoxical issue in tourism's adaptation to climate change and emissions reduction demands. Operators increasingly take tourists to destinations threatened by climate change, with Antarctica and other polar regions as favourites and cruise ship and aircraft as main transport modes. The selling point is to see a destination before it disappears, a form of last chance tourism. This has been claimed to increase the environmental awareness of tourists and make them “ambassadors” for conservation and the visited destination. Antarctic cruise ship passengers tripled from 2000 to 2007. The paper finds that high levels of greenhouse gas emissions are created by cruise ship tourists in general, and especially high levels for those visiting the Antarctic, up to approximately eight times higher per capita and per day than average international tourism trips. A survey found no evidence for the hypothesis that the trips develop greater environmental awareness, change attitudes or encourage more sustainable future travel choices. Of the Antarctic cruise passengers surveyed, 59% felt that their travel did not impact on climate change; fewer than 7% had or might offset their emissions. Alternative opportunities for visitation to glacial/polar destinations that comply with the desire to reduce future emissions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourist destinations in small island developing states are facing increasing risk from climate change, threatening not only tourism businesses but all destination elements including the community and ecosystems. In order to reduce climate risk destination wide, this paper first enhances the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change risk framework by extending it with destination specific features. This extended framework was drawn upon to develop a system model for Vanuatu, called the Vanuatu Tourism Adaptation System, using a qualitative multi-phase research design. The system highlights economic, socio-cultural, political, and environmental variables, how they are interlinked and thereby influence climate risk to destinations in Vanuatu. It provides a novel tool for understanding climate risk reduction within destinations as a holistic system and based on this understanding, destination trade-offs and policy recommendations are discussed. It can thus aid tourism and climate change decision makers in identifying and testing adaptation measures that benefit not only tourism but the destination more broadly, including the local community and ecosystem health. This study fills a gap in the academic literature by enhancing the systemic understanding of climate risk in small island developing states destinations and contributes to our understanding of tourism as a climate-resilient development pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines future climate change scenarios for the Mediterranean region using the Tourism Climatic Index. Currently, an estimated 100 million tourists visit the Mediterranean region annually, largely because of its favourable climate. Experiments with climate change scenarios suggest likely changes, with the Mediterranean becoming too hot in summer, with northern Europe having a more attractive climate, and with the Mediterranean becoming a more pleasant destination in spring and autumn. These spatial and temporal changes in climatic attractiveness could have major impacts on the sustainability of tourism development. Preliminary results for the case study of the Balearic Islands suggest that changes are likely to be detrimental from an economic and social point of view, and neutral or favourable from a resource management and biodiversity perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast body of literature suggests that the European Alpine Region is extremely sensitive to climate change. Winter tourism is closely related to climate variations, especially in mountain regions where resorts are heavily dependent on snow. This paper explores how to effectively integrate a climate change adaptation perspective with local discourses about sustainability and tourism, an increasing priority for policy-makers in the region and elsewhere. It reports on the development and application of a participatory decision support process for the analysis of adaptation strategies for local development of an Alpine tourism destination, Auronzo di Cadore (Dolomites, Italy). This experience significantly contributed to the idea that an efficient combination of modelling capabilities, decision support tools, and participatory processes can substantially improve decision-making for sustainability. The authors show that, in this case study, such a combination of methods and tools allowed for managing the involvement of local actors, stimulating local debates on climate change adaptation and possible consequences on winter tourism, encouraging creativity and smoothing potential conflicts, and easing the integration of the qualitative knowledge and the preferences of the involved actors with quantitative information. This contributed to an integrated sustainability assessment of alternative strategies for sustainable tourism planning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]