Enhancing sustainability in travel package experiences

Abstract

The tourism industry is being driven by the need to address sustainable development and global sustainability-related challenges. Due to the industry's significant size and the consequent adverse effects it creates, it is essential to create increasingly responsible tourism experiences and find ways to attract consumers to purchase them. The thesis project aims to recognize how sustainability could create value for the customer in a travel package experience, which tour operators could, in turn, utilize to guide customers towards choosing responsible products. Additionally, the thesis project seeks to identify challenges and benefits consumers associate with responsible tourism. The goal of the thesis project is to help the commissioning company Aurinkomatkat to identify these various factors.

The conceptual framework of this study is created by exploring theoretical literature in the areas of customer experience, value creation, sustainability, responsible tourism, responsible consumption behavior and traveler behavior. The target group of the study is Finnish millennials. The project was conducted using service design methodology, which allows the integration of customer needs and business requirements. The service design process of the project starts with the discovery stage's eight semi-structured theme interviews, followed by the usage of a variety of service design tools in the following stages. Finally, a responsible travel package experience business model is formulated and described using the Business Model Canvas.

Based on the research results, it was found that Finnish millennials face various challenges related to responsible tourism. They often do not have sufficient understanding and knowledge of what responsible tourism entails. Therefore, evaluating the authenticity of different options and service providers' communications is perceived as difficult. Responsible measures are also believed to weaken the quality of the travel experience. Yet, one of the most significant challenges is that they feel that their choices do not genuinely have an impact.

The research findings support previous studies which indicate that travelers are not yet willing to pay extra for responsible products. However, if a traveler perceives that their responsible choices genuinely impact the environment or the people in the destination country, it may contribute to the emotional value of the travel package experience. The perceived value also encourages to choose more responsible products and service providers. The research identified that a genuine experience of having an impact may be created with concrete and easily understandable information and visibility of the impacts along the customer journey. Value is also formed through the experience of participation, or co-creation, where a traveler gets to actively participate in activities that promote responsibility in the travel destination. Thus, it is the tour operator's duty to create these necessary pre-conditions that will enable the travelers to make more responsible choices.