“Take a gap year!” A social practice perspective on air travel and potential transitions towards sustainable tourism mobility.

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]