The impact of intermediaries and social marketing on promoting sustainable behaviour in leisure travellers

Abstract

Aside from attracting tourists, there has been an increased interest in marketing to tourists who behave more sustainably as this can contribute to both a higher yield and overarching Sustainable Development Goals. This study investigates the contribution that intermediaries and the use of social marketing have on the sustainable attitudes and behaviour of Canadian tourists. Given their roles within the travel industry, examining the influence intermediaries might have on sustainable travel behaviour is an important objective. This paper applies both the Knowledge, Attitude, Behaviour (KAB) Theory and Social Marketing Theory (SMT) through a survey of 1003 Canadian holiday travellers. A quantitative study using exploratory factor analysis, correlations and regression are applied to reduce the data to manageable variables and to test their inter-relationship and effects on the travellers’ sustainable behaviour. In doing so, a contribution to theory has been made through the identification of a more complex KAB paradigm and the usefulness of combining both theories. It was also found that using intermediaries and their social marketing platforms, such as local tourist destination websites, social media, and travel agencies, was a statistically significant contributor to more sustainable behaviour. The findings of this study address the gap in the literature related to combining SMT with the sustainable knowledge-attitude-behaviour paradigm and the lack of Canadian context in this regard. With sustainability behaviour by Canadian leisure travellers lacking and only one in two travellers having knowledge and attitudes for more-sustainable behaviour, the principal practical implication arising from this research is the need for intermediaries to enhance the promotion of sustainable travel behaviour within their social marketing strategies.