Open AccessProfiling for sustainable tourism: young travellers’ self- transcendence values and motivations
Author(s) -
Elena Cavagnaro,
Simona Staffieri,
Angelo Carrieri,
Kevin J. Burns,
Nan Chen,
Alessandra Fermani
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
european journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.467
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1314-0817
pISSN - 1994-7658
DOI - 10.54055/ejtr.v28i.2261
Subject(s) - tourism , sustainable tourism , profiling (computer programming) , framing (construction) , marketing , china , predictive power , tourism geography , destinations , psychology , sociology , advertising , social psychology , political science , geography , business , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , computer science , law , operating system
Young people seek meaningful, participative, and co-created experiences. Yet young tourists seem less attracted than expected by tourism offers that emphasise involvement, such as sustainable tourism. A possible explanation lies in values and travel motivations specific to young travellers. Although travel motivations have been extensively researched, few have attempted to categorize the resulting list of travel motivations. Research on values is systematized but has limited predictive power because it is generally conducted without reference to immediate causes of behaviour such as motivations. This study proposes to segment young travellers using values and motivations simultaneously and, to account for socio-economic conditions, to investigate young travellers in China and Italy. Multivariate analysis revealed clusters that offer strong opportunities for a sustainable tourism proposition both in the Italian and the Chinese sample. Out of the other identified clusters, some offer similar opportunities yet require a different framing of the tourism offer, while some seem only interested in hedonic experiences. How this more sophisticated picture of young tourists may account for their tepidity towards sustainable tourism is discussed, alongside limitations, suggestions for future research, and a reflection about the re-start of European tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic.