Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(2011b) argue that there is a need to focus on different sites of practice as a way of understanding
and questioning sustainable lifestyles. We can recognize two signifi cant sites of practice in this
context: the 'home' and the 'holiday'. Increasingly the home is seen as a site of practice to engage
in sustainable behaviour through energy savings and recycling. By comparison the holiday
destination as a site of practice shifts the boundaries of sustainable action, and research by Barr
et al
. (2011c) has demonstrated that there is a need to recognize such 'spaces of liminality',
leisure practices and the home. These are important complications for the application of social
marketing in terms of sustainable behaviour and will be considered in the following section.
We started this section by highlighting the increasing attention given by policy makers to the
ideas relating to nudge theory along with recent criticisms. In terms of promoting and enacting
pro-environmental behaviour a consensus seems to be emerging that nudge will not provide a
single way forward but rather needs to form part of a range of social marketing strategies. This
was the clear message from the House of Lords Report (Science and Technology Committee
2011). Young and Middlemiss (2012) go further and suggest 'a package of measures that impact
on the individual, community and the wider context'. In these terms nudge strategies fi t by
providing a range of choice architecture. Here choice architecture refers to the means by which
decisions are infl uenced and by how such choices are presented to people. Nudge ideas involve
arranging the choice architecture in such a way that may nudge individuals to a certain pattern
of behaviour but at the same time not taking away any freedom of choice. This approach therefore
is very different from ideas of interventions such as fi scal incentives. Young and Middlemiss
(2012) have demonstrated in their review of different social marketing approaches and
environmental behaviour the importance of using a package of incentives and penalties along
with nudge actions. This to some extent contradicts some of the basic ideas associated with
nudge strategies which do not embrace direct incentives but at the same time appears to offer a
potentially effective strategy.
The ideas of social marketing therefore are centred on some key principles (
Table 5.1
)
but in
addition to these Ong and Blair-Stevens (2010) have also outlined the intervention process
in terms of a 'total process planning' framework. This is based on a series of phases or stages
(
Table 5.2
)
that embrace the more practical aspects of social marketing. Using these basic ideas
gives the social marketing process a clear set of bench marks to develop the key interventions.
Social marketing approaches to tourism and travel
The application of social marketing techniques to tourism and travel is a relatively new
phenomenon and in large part intersects with the growing agenda on pro-environmental
Table 5.2
Key stages in the total process planning framework for a social marketing campaign
Stage
Aspects
'Scoping'
- Examining issues and challenges, gaining detail understanding of the lives
and behaviours associated with main problem
'Developing'
- Designing and developing behavioural goals into an intervention. Pre-test
ideas to see which interventions likely to be most effective
'Implementation'
- Rolling out the intervention and monitoring its progress
'Evaluation'
- Receiving and reassessing the cost effectiveness of the campaign
Source
: Ong and Blair-Stevens (2010)
