Why targeting attitudes often fails to elicit sustainable tourist behaviour

Purpose Recent reviews of field experiments aiming to entice tourists to behave in more environmentally sustainable ways conclude that attitudes – while the primary target – do not perform as well as expected. The purpose of this study is to analyse in detail when attitudes have or have not been successful as behavioural change targets and propose a conceptual framework of possible explanations. In so doing, this study represents the first theoretical – rather than empirical – challenge to the currently dominant theoretical understanding of environmentally significant tourist behaviours and offers alternative theoretical constructs tourism researchers aiming to make tourists behave in more sustainable ways could investigate in future. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigate in detail experiments where attitude-based behavioural change approaches failed. Based on the insights from this analysis, the authors propose a conceptual framework offering five potential explanations. This study also discusses alternative theoretical constructs that could be used for behavioural change interventions. Findings The authors derive five potential explanations for why attitudes often fail to trigger behavioural change in the context of environmentally sustainable tourist behaviour: tourists do not notice messages attempting to change their attitudes; tourists are unwilling to cognitively process behavioural change messages; tourists develop reactance to behavioural change requests; attempts to alter attitudes do not influence habits; and attempts to alter attitudes do not reduce the effort associated with displaying the desired behaviour. Research limitations/implications This study broadens research attention to alternative theoretical constructs that may be more effective in making tourists behave in more sustainable ways and opens opportunities for new measures tourism businesses and destinations can implement to influence tourist behaviour. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first theoretical investigation of possible reasons why attitudes have performed poorly as targets of behavioural change interventions aiming to trigger environmentally sustainable tourist behaviours.