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The tourism industry must reduce the negative impacts of its operations on the environment to secure its own prosperity into the future and to contribute to humanity’s collective aim of more sustainable production and consumption. An increasing number of studies in sustainable tourism have attempted to develop and test in the field the effectiveness of behavioural change interventions aimed at enticing tourism stakeholders in behaving more sustainably. These efforts have focused primarily on tourists. Employees have been largely neglected as potential agents of change, despite the substantial environmental consequences of their behaviours. This article pioneers this area of investigation. In a quasi-experimental field study conducted during regular operations of two hotels in Europe, we demonstrate that an equity-theory based behavioural intervention can successfully reduce the number of single-use shampoos dispensed by hotel cleaning staff during daily routine room cleans. Results are of immediate value to managers of tourism businesses – especially those of small and medium sized accommodation providers who do not have the financial means to make major infrastructure changes – by equipping them with a practical measure they can easily deploy to reduce the negative impact on the environment of their operations while also reducing their operating cost.

The global aspiration to mitigate climate change puts substantial pressure on the tourism sector – one of the most polluting industries – to operate in more sustainable ways. This study reviews intervention experiments in tourism and hospitality aimed at making tourist behaviour more sustainable. The analysis of 53 field experiments reveals the most promising intervention strategies. The resulting knowledge map highlights that past intervention studies were limited to only a small number of relevant target behaviours and intervention types, pointing to many unexplored areas that require urgent attention in future.

Vacations are assumed to be characterised by enjoyment. More specifically, the level of enjoyment on vacation is assumed to be substantially higher than that of a normal day at home. Yet, this assumption has never been empirically tested. This study provides initial empirical evidence for the fact that all enjoyment-related constructs at the core of positive psychology (hedonic trait and state motivation/orientation and experience, and eudaimonic trait and state motivation/orientation and experience) are significantly higher on vacation than in the normal, everyday home context. To arrive at these empirical findings, the study also introduces to tourism research a conceptual framework that unambiguously defines the most commonly used eudaimonic and hedonic constructs and develops and empirically assesses appropriate single-item measures.

Some research methods are used by default. Even if they undermine the validity of conclusions, authors no longer justify the use of default approaches and reviewers no longer query them. One such default is the use of bipolar ordinal 5/7-point survey answer formats, often incorrectly referred to as 5/7-point “Likert scales”. This Viewpoint argues that default answer formats should be replaced by thorough assessments of the benefit-to-cost ratio of alternative answer formats for every survey question asked. Benefits of answer formats include enabling respondents to meaningfully express themselves, while keeping respondent burden low. Costs include reducing data quality by introducing bias or over-burdening respondents, or by collecting data at a scale level that limits permissible statistical procedures.

This study investigates why people who actively engage in environmental protection at home engage, albeit unintentionally, in vacation behaviour which has negative environmental consequences. The environmental activists participating in the study were highly aware of the negative environmental consequences of tourism in general, but all displayed an attitude–behaviour gap which made them feel uncomfortable. Participants did not report changing their behaviour; instead, they offered a wide range of explanations justifying their tourist activities. Gaining insight into these explanations contributes to our understanding of why it is so difficult to motivate people to minimize the negative environmental impacts of their vacations, and represents a promising starting point for new interventions to reduce environmentally unsustainable tourism behaviours.

Some Airbnb host communities display the characteristics of neo-tribes. The neo-tribe literature offers rich insights into the life of a neo-tribe, but their formation and ongoing functioning remain under-researched. This paper investigates these issues using a netnographic approach that explored the formation and practices of a Tasmanian Airbnb Host Forum. The results reveal the reason for its formation and the functions of the neo-tribe, particularly as a support mechanism for hosts and defiance against perceived marginalisation by the tourism industry that has refused to embrace hosts; residents who viewed hosts as traitors; the government who regulates their entrepreneurial activities; and the media who vilified them. This study contributes to theory by developing knowledge on the stages of neo-tribal formation, and the influence that these stages have upon the ongoing function of the tribe.

Purpose This paper aims to discuss issues relating to survey research in tourism. Design/methodology/approach This brief perspective paper discusses the routine approach of survey research that has developed over many years (as tourism researchers adopted the most promising approaches to survey research fields), discusses the dangers associated with following this (or any) routine approach, and offers a small set of questions for researchers to consider before embarking on their next survey study. Findings A default approach to survey research has developed. It can undermine the validity of conclusions. The key to high-quality survey research is to thoughtfully design the survey study considering the specific research question at hand, and to carefully pre-test the questionnaire. Originality/value This is a perspective paper offering a brief overview of the topic of survey research in tourism.

Purpose This paper discusses the dos and don'ts of market segmentation analysis. Market segmentation analysis is younger than the journal Tourism Review, but nevertheless has a rich history in tourism research and continues to be extensively used by both tourism researchers and industry. Design/methodology/approach After a brief overview of the origins of market segmentation analysis and its uptake in tourism, a number of key considerations are discussed, which are critical to ensuring that practically useful and reliable market segments emerge from the analysis. Findings Do accept that market segmentation is exploratory. Do spend a lot of time ensuring you collect high-quality data. Don’t use ordinal data. Don’t use correlated variables. Do ensure your sample size is large enough. Don’t use factor-cluster analysis. Do conduct data structure analysis. Don’t complicate things. Originality/value This is a perspective study; it offers a concise discussion of key issues in market segmentation analysis and directs the interested reader to resources where they can learn more about each of these issues.