Research on sustainability and sustainable tourism has thus far avoided evaluating how tourists actually understand these terms. Instead, scholars have focused on the supply side, presuming a common and precise understanding of sustainability and sustainable tourism among all tourists and stakeholders. This study shows that most consumers link sustainability only to environmental issues, and understand sustainability differently from sustainable tourism. It finds significant interpersonal and intercultural differences regarding consumers’ conceptualisations of sustainability. The results illustrate that empirical research methodology for conceptualising consumers’ sustainability understanding frequently is doubtful or weak. This research exposes tourists’ limited understanding of sustainability, and helps tackle widespread scepticism about the effectiveness of sustainable tourism, by creating better informed sustainable tourism marketing.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars have presented publications discussing a shift of tourism towards a higher level of sustainability. Many argue that in 2020, people were not able to travel as usual and therefore could discover the added value of a sustainable vacation through new experiences in new, often domestic destinations. Using a quantitative online panel-based study in five European countries and the USA, we looked for evidence supporting such arguments. We analyzed demographics, the observed change in destination choice, and important criteria when selecting a different destination, including potential effects of the pandemic on traveling. We uncovered possible impacts of the 2020 vacation experience on future traveling and looked at both travel push factors and social values of non-travelers and travelers for explanation. Overall, we could not find any evident signals for the pandemic to be a trigger for more sustainable traveling, nor a long-term change in future demand.

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