Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and Mokhtarian (2005) suggest the style of travel may matter to some people.
And, as Britton (1991, p454) suggests:
the tourist industry sells 'experiences' … the value of the travel
mode … lies in the quality and quantity of the experience they
promise and symbolise … the purchase of a life-style; a state-
ment of taste … a signifier of status.
Lassen's (2009) study of business travellers shows how international travel
enabled participants with families to construct an identity as both cosmopol-
itan and family person, both 'wings and roots'.
Given the climate change implications of tourism travel, it is of consider-
able importance to understand how traveller identities emerge, how they
shape, and are shaped by, travel patterns and values in society. It is suggested
that a new identity is required for people to take meaningful climate
change mitigation action (Stoll-Kleemann et al, 2001). As Becken (2007, p364)
highlights:
tourists' engagement in international air travel goes well beyond
individual dimensions of functionality (e.g. relaxation), attitudes
and values, but that participation in global travel has a high
symbolic meaning and therefore is a fundamental part of an
individual's positioning in society. Given the great (perceived)
benefit from air travel, it seems unlikely that tourists would vol-
untarily support mitigation policies that would restrict their
ability to travel.
While slow travel obviously affords opportunities to 'find yourself' through
self-development, the interest here lies in how identity is now formed in
relation to consumption, and how identity may be a driver to more, or less,
consumption:
self-identity … is not something that is just given … but some-
thing that has to be routinely created and sustained in the
reflexive activities of the individual … It is
the self
as reflexively
understood by the person in terms of her or his biography.
(Giddens; cited by Southerton et al, 2004b, p35)
In essence, it is about how we want to be perceived by others:
Consumption becomes not simply a choice about goods and
services but a choice about a style of life, about who we are
and how we wish to be perceived by others in particular social
settings. (Southerton et al, 2004b, p36)
While economic, cultural and social resources impact on what and how people
consume, Southerton et al (2004b) also identify normative constraints that
