57 UNDERSTANDING TOURIST BEHAVIOR IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT – Contributions by A
57 UNDERSTANDING TOURIST BEHAVIOR IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT – Contributions by Astrid Kemperman
The travel and tourism industry is among the most affected sectors by the Covid-19 pandemic, with a massive fall in international tourism demand. While the industry is currently recovering, the World Tourism Organization argues that this fall in demand offers the opportunity to rethink the tourism sector and build back better towards a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient sector that ensures that the benefits of tourism are enjoyed widely and fairly (UNWTO, 2021). Over the last decades, it has become clear that the growth of tourism brings significant challenges with it and is itself also influenced by for example climate change, pollution, decreasing natural resources, growing populations, and local and cultural differences. The negative environmental impacts of tourism are substantial: tourism puts stress on local land use, can lead to increased pollution, and more pressure on endangered species and the natural habitat. A more sustainable tourism approach would mean taking into account the current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, the preferences and needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities (UNWTO, 2021).
At the same time, recent technological and digital innovations also change the way people live, work, travel, interact with one another, and how they spend their free time. The borders between the digital, social, and physical environment are more and more intertwined. Technological advances, information dissemination, the influence of social networks, and increasing available free time and monetary budgets have further strengthened the need to create sustainable development opportunities for the tourism industry to support and improve efficient destination planning, management, and local community empowerment and inclusiveness. Moreover, as argued by Gretzel and Koo (2021), these technological developments lead to a convergence of urban residential and touristic spaces, and there is value in merging so-called smart tourism and smart city planning and management development goals to serve both residents and tourists in the best possible ways.
Research is needed to test the possible impact of new technology on tourists, their needs, preferences and activities, social relationships, and interaction with the environment. These considerations drive my general research aim: to develop a deeper understanding of individuals’ needs, preferences, and spatial activity patterns within the context of the digital, social, and physical environment to help find solutions for these challenging problems. In this chapter, a concise overview of my research, from the past to present and some new ideas are presented and discussed, as shown in figure 1: investigating tourist choice behavior within a changing digital, social and physical environment to support planning and design of environments that enhance tourist