Environment does not determine young people's tourism choices

Tourism has a major impact on the environment, but there is a lack of incentives to change travel-related consumption behaviour. Limited knowledge, fatalism as well as an exaggerated belief that technology will solve environmental problems are some of the main reasons for this. These are some of the conclusions of a thesis on young people's relationship with tourism and the environment.

Tourism has a large environmental footprint in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water consumption and waste, among others. In recent decades, the environmental impact of tourism has increased. At present, there is no indication that this trend will stop.

“Policy and business initiatives are important to limit environmental impacts. But there are few examples of international agreements that regulate the global tourism market and initiatives from the tourism industry. My thesis focuses instead on the impact of individual consumption choices”, says Jenny Nilsson Vestola, PhD in Industrial Marketing.

Among other things, she has interviewed 20 Swedes belonging to Generation Z, that is, people born between 1997 and 2012. Generation Z is characterized, among other things, by the fact that they do not remember an existence without the internet and that they have grown up in an uncertain world characterized by climate turmoil, covid pandemic and increased living costs.

Jenny Nilsson Vestola. Photo: Staffan Westerlund

Generation Z's consumption choices

In another study, she has analysed how Generation Z views its own ability to influence the climate through consumption choices. The analysis is based on data from the digital discussion forum Reddit, where she searched for keywords such as “travel”, “tourism” and “climate change”, which resulted in a total of about 45,000 fields. Using machine learning, she divided these into 13 different clusters, of which 300 comments and posts from three of these clusters were manually analysed.

In the analysis, Jenny Nilsson Vestola identified a total of ten barriers to consumption-related climate action. One barrier is lack of knowledge: It is difficult for young people to know how to effectively reduce their climate impact and debates about what is most sustainable often arise. Another is fatalism: young people feel that it does not matter how they act. A third is technology confidence: they believe that technology, rather than lifestyle changes, will eventually solve the problems.

“It should be noted that white men from the US are overrepresented on Reddit. However, the purpose of the study was not to get a statistically significant picture of attitudes towards tourism, but to understand the different perspectives young people have on the issue,” explains Jenny Nilsson Vestola.

Generation Y feels more empowered

The thesis also includes a study of 712 survey responses from young Britons belonging to Generation Y and Z. Generation Y is made up of people born between 1981 and 1996 who have grown up with mobile telephony and personal computers and who were young when the internet broke through to the general public. The survey was about tourism and the environment linked to, among other things, perceived social norms, perceived control to choose environmentally friendly alternatives and the opportunity to influence society, so-called empowerment. The study shows that Generation Y reports statistically significant higher scores than Generation Z on two of the study's factors: they feel more empowered and are more likely to perceive that those around them consider environmentally friendly tourism to be an important issue.

The final study is a survey of 607 Swedes, also from generations Y and Z, and their willingness to choose an environmentally friendly tourism option despite the fact that it may be more expensive and time-consuming. The study shows that perceived empowerment, concern for the environment and awareness of the consequences of environmentally harmful tourism have a statistically significant impact on personal norms, that is, the sense of responsibility to reduce their environmental impact. These norms in turn influence the willingness to choose a more environmentally friendly option, even when it involves higher costs or longer travel time. However, there is no statistically significant relationship between self-assessed knowledge and personal norms. However, the study shows a direct relationship between self-rated knowledge and perceived empowerment and willingness to sacrifice time or money for an environmentally friendly alternative.

An overall conclusion of the thesis is that the biggest barrier for young people to choose environmentally friendly tourism options is the lack of incentives. Another is that young people themselves do not spontaneously link tourism and the environment. When the subject is raised, the link is made mainly between the environment and air travel.

“If young people are to be encouraged to choose environmentally friendly options, more emphasis needs to be placed on aspects that are not only related to the environment. Eco-tourism needs to be perceived as more fun, cheaper and more convenient. It is also important to identify role models, such as influencers, who can normalize environmentally friendly tourism,” says Jenny Nilsson Vestola.