TY - JOUR

T1 - Increasing adoption of voluntary carbon offsets among tourists

AU - Segerstedt, Anna

AU - Grote, Ulrike

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Air travellers have had the option to purchase voluntary carbon offsets (VCOs) available to them for almost a decade, yet adoption rates remain low. Drawing upon diffusion of innovations theory, and based on a sample of 449 German long-haul tourists, we analyse knowledge of VCOs, and using logit regressions, the probability of their purchasing VCOs. We investigate the profile of people who have actually purchased VCOs, unlike many earlier researchers who used stated preferences data to estimate willingness to pay. Our findings reveal that the drivers of adoption are primarily linked to lifestyle factors, including being young, adventurous, and having a vegetarian/low climate impact diet. A proportion of tourists are aware of VCOs but have not practiced offsetting to date, although they are positive towards the idea, are used to make donations, and are committed to environmental issues. Persuading travellers belonging to this group to actively engage in using VCOs is an important task for future VCO market development. It will be necessary to compare best-practice/less best practice airline policies, explore how to make VCO schemes more visible, and more closely examine the adopters market segment to improve communication strategies and encourage increased uptake of VCOs.

AB - Air travellers have had the option to purchase voluntary carbon offsets (VCOs) available to them for almost a decade, yet adoption rates remain low. Drawing upon diffusion of innovations theory, and based on a sample of 449 German long-haul tourists, we analyse knowledge of VCOs, and using logit regressions, the probability of their purchasing VCOs. We investigate the profile of people who have actually purchased VCOs, unlike many earlier researchers who used stated preferences data to estimate willingness to pay. Our findings reveal that the drivers of adoption are primarily linked to lifestyle factors, including being young, adventurous, and having a vegetarian/low climate impact diet. A proportion of tourists are aware of VCOs but have not practiced offsetting to date, although they are positive towards the idea, are used to make donations, and are committed to environmental issues. Persuading travellers belonging to this group to actively engage in using VCOs is an important task for future VCO market development. It will be necessary to compare best-practice/less best practice airline policies, explore how to make VCO schemes more visible, and more closely examine the adopters market segment to improve communication strategies and encourage increased uptake of VCOs.

KW - adoption

KW - Climate change

KW - diffusion

KW - innovation process

KW - tourist behaviour

KW - voluntary carbon offsetting

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959049953&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/09669582.2015.1125357

DO - 10.1080/09669582.2015.1125357

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84959049953

VL - 24

SP - 1541

EP - 1554

JO - Journal of sustainable tourism

JF - Journal of sustainable tourism

SN - 0966-9582

IS - 11

ER -