This paper shifts the debate on sustainable tourism destinations from an emphasis on ecotourism and eco-resorts towards sustainable urban tourism destinations. A quantitative online survey of visitors to Melbourne, Australia, examined tourists' pro-environmental behaviours in four major categories: recycling; green transport use; sustainable energy/material use (lighting/water usage), and green food consumption. It explores five major antecedents to those categories: habitual behaviour, environmental attitudes, facilities available, a need to take a break from environmental duties, and sense of tourist social responsibility. The paper also examines the poorly understood belief that pro-environmental behaviour weakens when residents become tourists. Existing habits were found to strongly influence all four urban pro-environmental behaviours. Available facilities are the second most important antecedent. Overall, urban tourist pro-environment behaviour drivers differ markedly from those of residents or ecotourists. A range of tourism industry and public sector agency policy recommendations are made, in terms of developing specific, well sited and easy to find/use environmental infrastructure assets such as recycling facilities and public transport, reducing implementation barriers and in formulating an overall pro-environmental image for the destination. The study envisages a new concept, tourist social responsibility, with high relevance to furthering tourism's sustainability.Griffith Business School, Department of MarketingNo Full Tex

This paper applies the educational theory of transformative learning to reconceptualising the practices of volunteer tourism. The theory of transformative learning posits a 10-step process to experience a radical shift in consciousness that dramatically and irreversibly alters how participants see their place in the world. Volunteer tourism has commonly been seen as a form of alternative tourism that provides a cathartic experience for the volunteer tourists and benefits to the hosting organisation and the natural and/or social environment of the project. Existing research suggests that these outcomes have not, as yet, been achieved by current practices in this sector. In referring to the theory of transformative learning we note that some, but not all, of the 10 steps have been applied and that we might therefore expect volunteer tourism to fall short of its promises. We conclude that the theory of transformative learning offers a useful framework for volunteer tourism, providing insights into the need to create opportunities for participants to complete the transformative process. We suggest that volunteer tourism organisations redesign their activities to include the remaining steps of transformative learning to improve their product for both the tourists and the sustainability outcomes of the projects.

This study adopts a multidisciplinary perspective on the process of transformational change in volunteer tourism. Transformational change is understood as an individualized process which can lead to a critical awareness of the self, leading to a new self-definition. It involves four specific elements, a reflection upon the content of their knowledge, the process of knowing, the premise of what they know and the relational elements of their knowledge. Adopting a qualitative semi-structured interview approach, volunteer tourists provide an account of their volunteer tourism experiences in relation to these four transformational process elements. The results indicate that transformational change does occur through tourism, but that this is an individualized process, not an end outcome. Transformation may be strong at an internal level but it may or may not manifest in behaviour that the individual tourist him or herself is even aware of, let alone observable behaviour that researchers can quantify. It is therefore best understood as a process with distinct steps, of which a change in behaviour is just one element. Facilitators of change can be identified but only partially explain why transformation does and does not occur.

Purpose: This review aims to discuss concepts and theories from cognitive psychology, identifies tourism studies applying them and discusses key areas for future research. The paper aims to demonstrate the usefulness of cognitive psychology for understanding why tourists and particularly pleasure travellers demonstrate the behaviour they exhibit.Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews 165 papers from the cognitive psychology and literature regarding pleasure travel related to consciousness, mindfulness, flow, retrospection, prospection, attention, schema and memory, feelings and emotions. The papers are chosen to demonstrate the state of the art of the literature and provide guidance on how these concepts are vital for further research.Findings: The paper demonstrates that research has favoured a behaviourist rather than cognitive approach to the study of hedonic travel. Cognitive psychology can help to understand the mental processes connecting perception of stimuli with behaviour. Numerous examples are provided: top-down and bottom-up attention processes help to understand advertising effectiveness, theories of consciousness and memory processes help to distinguish between lived and recalled experience, cognitive appraisal theory predicts the emotion elicited based on a small number of appraisal dimensions such as surprise and goals, knowledge of the mental organisation of autobiographical memory and schema support understanding of destination image formation and change and the effect of storytelling on decision-making, reconstructive bias in prospection or retrospection about a holiday inform the study of pleasurable experience. These findings indicate need for further cognitive psychology research in tourism generally and studies of holiday travel experiences.Research limitations/implications: This review is limited to cognitive psychology and excludes psychoanalytic studies.Practical implications: Cognitive psychology provides insight into key areas of practical importance. In general, the use of a cognitive approach allows further understanding of leisure tourists’ behaviour. The concept of attention is vital to understand destination advertising effectiveness, biases in memory process help to understand visitor satisfaction and experience design and so on. Use of cognitive psychology theory will lead to better practical outcomes for tourists seeking pleasurable experiences and destination managers.Originality value: This is the first review that examines the application of concepts from cognitive psychology to the study of leisure tourism in particular. The concepts studied are also applicable to study of travellers generally.

This conceptual paper explores the use of psychology, especially positive psychology, to inform the design of travel experiences for a specific health outcome – enhanced participant wellbeing or mental health. It extends the concept of sustainable tourism as a tool for local, regional and societal improvement. Mental health is a growing issue in many developed countries: 30% of Australians report depressive symptoms, with implications for social sustainability. The paper reviews how positive psychology seeks to combine hedonic, eudemonic and social wellbeing into the integrated concept of “flourishing”, creating positive emotions, engagement, and meaning. It uses the charity challenge model to explore tourism experiences that enhance participant wellbeing. Charity challenges are participatory, group travel events combined with extended physical activity, awareness-raising, and fund-raising for charity. These events inherently combine recognised pathways to wellbeing, e.g. being active, doing something meaningful, giving, and connecting with others. Other principles from positive psychology, such as intentional and volitional activity, goal attainment, activation of signature strengths, experiencing positive emotions/gratification, and capitalisation on positive experiences, can be incorporated into the event design to foster wellbeing outcomes. The paper suggests how this design might take shape, as well as management implications and further research questions.