Travel companies should make sustainable options the “default” because people often abandon environmental concerns when they are on a trip, according to an academic.
Behavioural economist Dr Milena Nikolova spoke at a Travel by B Corp event in London on Tuesday, June 20.
She said people are not 100% rational, adding that when they are on holiday they will prioritise maximising the joy in their experience and might ignore their usual beliefs on sustainability issues.
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Urging travel companies to take this into account, she said: “If we make sustainability part of the design, make it part of the default and easy, make it attractive, it increases the likelihood that people will go for sustainable options without damaging the value of their experiences.”
Organisations with B Corp status have been recognised as meeting high levels of social and environmental performance.
Nikolova’s presentation, delivered to a group of B Corp-certified travel companies, summed up findings from academic literature and shared the results of new research.
The research, commissioned by Travel by B Corp, concluded that sustainability should be incorporated into the design of trips, rather than relying on travellers to make the right choices.
It also recommended making sustainable options the default options and it found that making it easy and appealing to be responsible can increase satisfaction.
“The traditional approach to sustainability is not working,” said Nikolova, adding that it relies too much on travellers’ decisions.
Calling for a refocusing on the part of travel companies, Nikolova said unsustainable options should be “boldly eliminated”.
“People always prioritise opportunities to maximise the value of the experience,” Nikolova said. “So if we make the more sustainable option the more appealing option, they will go for it because it maximises the experience they’re enjoying.”
Nikolova said that even if people usually have strict rules on sustainability issues including recycling and consumption, they will often suspend these rules when they are on a trip.
She added: “People ignore messages about sustainability when they’re on holiday.”
The new research involved an experiment in the South Downs National Park. A random sample was split into three groups for a two-hour leisure experience.
Nikolova said the next step will be to create a larger-scale version of the exercise.
Zina Bencheikh, Intrepid Travel’s managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, described the research as “very positive”.
She said Intrepid has built sustainability at the core of its products for 34 years, but added that the operator continues trying to improve. It is also trying to make its supply chain “more and more sustainable”, she said.
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