Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of using nudge theory (Food Ethics Council 2011). Thus, Warde (2011) suggests that 'nudging
will probably be ineffective in situations of intense market competition' (2011: 21) such as in food
retailing. As such the nudge mechanism on its own will struggle to overcome the commercial
advertising of large supermarket organizations and food companies.
However, in spite of these concerns and possible limitations nudge is increasingly part of the
UK policy landscape and attracting more interest from a wide range of academics. More recently
the concepts of nudge and indeed the attempts to change behaviour using social marketing have
been focussed on aspects of sustainable behaviour both in general terms and specifi cally in the
context of travel. The latter has been fi rmly linked to the agenda of mitigating climate change
(Corner and Randall 2011; Sussman 2010; Barr
et al
. 2011a). Social marketing has been used as
one way of promoting sustainable lifestyles however slippery and ill defi ned this lifestyle concept
is (Jackson 2005). Indeed the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) commissioned research under the leading 'Promoting Sustainable Lifestyles: a social
marketing approach' in 2006, which included some work on holiday travel (Barr
et al
. 2006).
Predating the so-called nudge unit the National Social Marketing Centre applied campaigns
promoting pro-environmental behaviour (Corner and Randall 2011; Peattie and Peattie 2009).
Such campaigns involved the 'de-marketing' of particular types of behaviours as well as promoting
others. Such ideas were based on the notions of social marketing using in turn a number of
underlying principles (
Table 5.1
).
Of key importance is the idea of market segmentation and
fi tting campaigns to particular segments of the market. As a comparison the Community Based
Social Marketing programme in the USA (McKenzie Mohr 2000; Corner and Randall 2011)
has also demonstrated in part the effectiveness of social marketing in terms of encouraging
pro-environmental behaviour at the community level.
One of the central parts of Defra's pro-environmental behaviour strategy is the development
and application of a market segmentation policy. This embraces seven types of groups characterized
by such criteria as environmental attitudes, socio-demographic variables and motivations. Such
segments are based on the UK population relating to their propensity to undertake 12 key
behaviours (Defra 2008). Clearly by using this approach behaviour change policy can be guided
by social marketing techniques. As French
et al
. (2009) explain, social marketing for sustainability
has emerged as both a major policy initiative and an academic area of research.
These are two key areas of academic concern relating to this social marketing approach; fi rst,
the underlying concepts of behaviour research and second, the importance of 'sites of practice'.
As we shall see the latter is of particular importance to enacting behaviour change in the context
of sustainable practices on holiday.
In terms of behaviour research there are two broad perspectives we need to note (Barr
et al
.
2011a). One concerns the more social-psychological theories that use a range of models
and seek to understand the infl uences on environmental behaviour. These include Fishbein and
Ajzen's (1975) 'Theory of Reasoned Action' and Ajzen's (1991) 'Theory of Planned Behaviour'.
Such ideas have been criticized on the grounds that they tend to over-rationalize behaviour and
more specifi cally simplify the debates concerning environmental practices. More signifi cantly
Eden (1993) argued that these rationalistic models are too linear in their approaches to decision
making, and knowledge is often assumed to be a barrier to behaviour change. This forms the
basis of the second main approach relating to the ideas of Shove (2003) with a perspective on
social practices (Verbeck and Mommass 2008). In this context pro-environmental behaviour, 'in
its conventional setting is framed by and within the daily practices of individuals and the
interactions with different social, political and material cultures' (Barr
et al
. 2011b: 1235).
The second major area of interest concerns the notion of 'sites of practice', which are of
particular signifi cance to enacting behaviour change relative to tourism consumption. Barr
et al
.
