Social marketing, sustainable tourism, and small/medium size tourism enterprises: challenges and opportunities for changing guest behaviour

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact on the guest experience of initiatives promoting water efficient behaviour in small--/ medium--sized enterprises (SMTEs) offering tourism accommodation. Interviews with 16 SMTE managers revealed businesses were unable to incorporate many initiatives previously examined in the literature due to the small size of their businesses. In the interviews, however, they contributed three new ideas not previously examined in existing sustainable tourism dialogues. A subsequent questionnaire (n=408) was administered to potential guests to better understand their water use behaviour, explore how initiatives might impact their accommodation experience, and to assess guest reactions to social marketing messages. Eight initiatives and five messages were tested. Cluster analysis revealed three distinct water user segments with one cluster showing the greatest promise for targeting to increase return on investment. Guests reported the highest positive impact on their experience from initiatives SMTEs stated were not operationally viable. This may indicate that larger firms have a competitive advantage over SMTEs if applying social marketing to change guest behaviour. However, the study found that two of the new initiatives suggested by SMTE managers as more appropriate to their businesses, would be viable in engaging guests and at acceptably low costs.

Influencing altruistic tourist behaviour: Persuasive communication to affect attitudes and self‐efficacy beliefs

“…Earlier research has shown that sustainability messages, even from sustainability award-winning firms, are not persuasive (Villarino & Font, 2015). This has been deemed to stem from their lack of belief that their messages will be effective (Borden, Coles, & Shaw, 2017;Font, Elgammal, & Lamond, 2017).…”

Consensus Building in Social Marketing Campaigns Through the Delphi Method

“…Four initiatives were highly prioritized by the panel: “remove barriers to change,” “initial welcome,” “incentives,” and “green ambassadors.” However, of these four initiatives, “incentives” scored the lowest for agreement (only 63.2%) that it would change behavior. Additionally, Borden, Coles and Shaw (2017) report that incentives are not always a possibility for smaller tourism accommodation firms and may therefore not be a viable option for intervention. Interestingly, “feedback cards” were highly supported by guests in earlier research stages as reported by Borden, Coles and Shaw (2017).…”

“…Additionally, Borden, Coles and Shaw (2017) report that incentives are not always a possibility for smaller tourism accommodation firms and may therefore not be a viable option for intervention. Interestingly, “feedback cards” were highly supported by guests in earlier research stages as reported by Borden, Coles and Shaw (2017). However, the Delphi panel felt they were likely to be completed after the guest experience and therefore have little effect on their behavior while staying in the accommodation.…”

“…This article exclusively examines the findings from this final stage. Some results from previous stages have been published in Coles, Warren, Borden and Dinan (2017) and Borden, Coles and Shaw (2017), though in one instance, data were reworked to discover potential initiatives specifically aimed at promoting water efficiency. Table 1 presents a brief description of the 10 initiatives emerging from previous stages to orient the reader.…”

Transitioning “Upward” When “Downstream” Efforts Are Insufficient

“…Research was conducted in two stages: a survey of patrons and subsequent experimental interventions. As identified by Carins, Rundle-Thiele, and Fidock (2016) and Borden, Coles, and Shaw (2017), social marketing campaigns which rely solely on survey data may be more prone to social desirability bias and the well-documented attitude–behavior gap (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). Social desirability bias refers to the phenomenon of participants responding to a surveyor in a manner in which they believe the researcher would desire.…”