Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tourism products meeting a minimum sustainability threshold. In doing so, the consumer
drawbacks of information overload, possible misinformation and confusion are arguably reduced
in the decision making process. A further option for tourism products with high negative impacts
and long time horizons for product development (e.g. airplanes, cars, the search for alternative
fuels and storage and delivery systems) is that of product roadmapping (Sustainable Development
Commission 2006) led by government with a series of staged targets, timetabled interventions
and incentives to push for better performing environmental products over a longer time period.
A policy of product roadmapping supports technological innovation for sustainability in research
and development for costly or complex products.
Conclusion
Sustainability and marketing for responsible tourism is the most pressing and intricate of tourism
marketing problems. It requires both the development of specialist and technical expertise (e.g.
waste management, biofuel research, energy effi ciency etc.) in concentrated silos and the coor-
dination and management of these silos to ensure effective across-the-board implementation. It
can be approached from the perspective of managerial marketing and the individual fi rm and
consumer, yet it operates in a context far greater than the concern of the individual tourism
business. Both the tourism and the marketing literature in the context of sustainability pose
questions for the very nature of the dominant social paradigm (limitless growth, continuous
consumption, value of the natural environment), questions that translate for the individual
tourism business with some awkwardness and discomfort. Thus, marketing decisions around
greening the product, segmenting the tourist, communicating the brand and so forth are com-
monly open to criticism, cynicism or distrust from different consumer and stakeholder groups.
The directions for future academic research in sustainability and marketing for responsible
tourism will depend on the researcher's or group of researchers' position and perspective that
they hold in the sustainability debate. For example, do they position themselves as anthropocentric,
placing people of central importance, or as ecocentric, placing nature of central importance? Do
they perceive themselves as reformists and working within the dominant social paradigm or as
radicals seeking to overthrow the dominant social paradigm (Kilbourne 1995) with a new order?
Stemming from this chapter, we would argue for more academic research using methodologies
rooted in real life consumer behaviour rather than relying on hypothetical or experimental
behaviour in relation to sustainability in tourism. For example, netnography may have a role to
this end. There is scope to research the value-action gap in the context of tourism and how this
might be mitigated, and to examine the issue of intrinsic motivation and how it best might be
enhanced for pro-environmental behaviours in different consumer segments. Research could
also address strategies for transforming behaviour for the big environmental decisions so often
associated with tourism as a sector (e.g. fl ight reduction), given the evidence that confi dence in
an overspill effect from everyday consumer decisions (e.g. recycling) appears to be misdirected.
Application of the harm chain as impinging on tourism organizations and associated stakeholders
might strengthen the literature on tourism stakeholders in sustainability, supply chain manage-
ment and impact identifi cation and alleviation (with tourism as both vector and as victim as
highlighted by the UNWTO). There is also scope for academic-practitioner collaboration for
marketing research into the demand for, and development of, new more responsible tourism
products and marketing practices. Finally, a large and relatively untapped area for academic
research would be the role of online-communities, consumer e-tribes, and the use of social
media in shifting travel and tourist behaviours and decision processes towards more responsible
choices and behaviour patterns.
