Do tourists want sustainability transitions? Visitor attitudes to destination trajectories during COVID-19

Abstract

The need for more sustainable tourism has long been recognised, with the COVID-19 pandemic precipitating renewed calls for large-scale and rapid transformation of the sector. Attractive as such calls were, implementing aspirations for more sustainable futures requires significant ‘buy-in’ from the demand-side and substantive evidence of tourists desiring change was lacking. This paper aims to address this empirical deficit and to critically reflect on early pandemic rhetoric. It reports on a panel survey conducted in Northern Devon, a destination with long-standing commitment to sustainable development, which respondents experienced during COVID-19 restrictions. Of three possible trajectories for tourism development, the majority preferred a sustainable future but a more consumptive trajectory was perceived as most likely. From its case-study approach, the paper critiques emergent discourse around sustainability transitions in tourism, highlighting a supply-side emphasis in extant analysis and the need for closer examination of tourist preferences for transitional pathways. If conceptual architectures from Transitions Studies are to support implementation of sustainability transitions in tourism, the Multi-Level Perspective and Transitions Management approach must consider tourists’ perspectives on destination change more carefully.