Loading...
Understanding tourists’ reactance to the threat of a loss of freedom to travel due to climate change: a new alternative approach to encouraging nuanced behavioural change.
Font, Xavier Hindley, Ann
Font, Xavier
Hindley, Ann
Advisors
Editors
Other Contributors
Affiliation
EPub Date
Publication Date
2016-05-16
Submitted Date
Collections
Files
Loading...
Main article
Microsoft Word XML, 114.09 KB
Other Titles
Abstract
This article proposes that reactance theory can be used to better understand how tourists’ perceptions of climate change affect their travel decisions. Reactance theory explains how individuals value their perceived freedom to make choices, and why they react negatively to any threats to their freedom. We study the psychological consequences of threatening tourist’s freedoms, using a range of projective techniques: directly, using photo expression, and indirectly, through collage, photo-interviewing and scenarios. We find that reactance theory helps to explain the extent of travel to two destinations: Svalbard and Venice, providing a nuanced understanding of how travellers restore their freedom to travel through three incremental stages: denying the climate change threat , reducing tensions arising from travel and heightening demand particularly for the most visibly threatened destinations. The theory suggests a fourth stage, helplessness, reached when consumers dismiss the value of destinations once they can no longer be enjoyed, but for which we, as yet, have no data. Reactance theory questions the validity of awareness raising campaigns as behavioural change vehicles, provides alternative explanations of why the most self-proclaimed, environmentally aware individuals travel frequently, and helps identify nuanced, socially acceptable forms of sustainability marketing, capable of reducing resistance to change.
Citation
Font, X., & Hindley, A. (2016). Understanding tourists’ reactance to the threat of a loss of freedom to travel due to climate change: a new alternative approach to encouraging nuanced behavioural change. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25(1), 26-42. DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2016.1165235
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Journal
Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Research Unit
DOI
10.1080/09669582.2016.1165235
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Type
Article
Language
en
Description
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Sustainable Tourism on 2016, available online: doi: 10.1080/09669582.2016.1165235
Series/Report no.
ISSN
0966-9582
EISSN
1747-7646