Rural tourism is dominated by car travel. To attract tourists and facilitate a modal shift, a greater understanding is needed on the factors driving tourist decisions. This paper examines destination and transport mode choices as a combined choice in the context of urban–rural tourism in Austria. To do this, this article explores two different model structures, ultimately using a multinomial logit model, which is rooted in the random utility theory. The analysed data are based on a large tourism survey, with additional trip and destination characteristics annotated later on to allow for the anticipated focus on supply-side factors. The results show that (1) destination and transport mode choices are intertwined decisions, (2) car and public transport (PT) travellers perceive travel time and distance differently, (3) a high-quality web presence is the strongest destination attractor, (4) walkability facilitates both destination and public transport attractiveness, and (5) daily and tourist mobility are connected through underlying mobility cultures. These results have various policy and planning implications, especially for destination attempting to transition towards more sustainable tourism futures by means of new transport or tourism offers or social marketing measures targeting both tourists with their personal values and practices as well as tourism-related institutions.

Rural alpine areas are affected by climate change in multiple ways. Today, many lower regions already face challenges in winter. However, several authors indicated new potentials for near-metropolitan areas in summer. As the first study for a metropolitan area, this paper discusses results of a large-scale quantitative survey (n = 877) from Vienna (Austria) to evaluate the intentions of urban residents to seek refreshment in nearby mountainous regions. The results regarding their adaptation behavior confirm the likely increase in demand to escape to nearby refreshing areas during heatwaves. This trend could lead to (re-)vitalization potential for rural near-metropolitan areas in Eastern Austria, which are often characterized by depopulation and degradation of infrastructure. A closer look at the respondents’ mobility behavior, reveals a high risk for unsustainable developments. Although the high and increasing share of car-free households in Vienna would suggest a strong demand for public transport, the likelihood to travel by car towards such destinations is high even among this group. Focusing predominantly on on-site mobility offers would be recommended since many travelers did not use their car within the destination. At last, the attractiveness of climate-friendly travel options is discussed considering mobility-related needs and preferences of three touristic motive groups.

Why do firms grow? Do they need to? Why do they want to? Why do some refuse to? In the context of post-growth research this paper investigates mechanisms that lead to the growth of small and medium sized enterprises and explores the non-growth option.While research on alternatives to growth at the level of the economy as a whole is accumulating, few studies have related the criticism of growth to the business level. This paper starts to address this gap by investigating mechanisms of growth for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), presenting a case study that applies Q methodology and interviews with owner-managers of both growing and non-growing SMEs in Austria. General mechanisms stimulating growth are identified (e. g., contributing to innovativeness and motivation of employees) and differentiated from those only of relevance for some SMEs: competition, financial stability, and a desire for market power. The owner-managers of non-growing SMEs hold values and pursue goals that free them from mechanisms of growth or prevent them from being triggered. Moreover, they exhibit a strong identification with their SME, operate in niche markets and strive for financial independence. This illustrates that a growth imperative is neither inevitable nor are growth mechanisms always operative, but depend upon structures and institutions.