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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

The role of endangered destinations in climate change education: exploratory perspectives in the glacier tourism context

Ludovic Ravanel

Résumé

Human-induced climate change threatens societies and livelyhood (IPCC, 2021). Tourism is an industry that is highly impacted worldwide (Mora et al., 2018) and, at the same time, responsible for more than 8% of the global greenhouse gaz emissions (Lenzen et al., 2018). However, despite the general awarness of the effects of climate change in the population, tourism is a sector where behaviour remains unsustainable and intention to act is relatively low (Juvan et al., 2016). The example of the ‘Last Chance Tourism’ (LCT), i.e. when tourists travel to see endangered features before they disappear (Lemelin et al., 2010), is a representative example. LCT visitors are often well aware of thehuman origin of climate change and its impacts but travel over long distances to see LCT places without really taking into account the implication of their travels on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (D’Souza et al., 2021). This phenomenom is considered as a form of cognitive dissonance as beliefs and acts are contradictory (Salim & Ravanel, 2020). Nonetheless, could evidences of climate change help to solve this paradox? Moreover, how can scientific culture in tourism help to achieve this goal?To move forward in this direction, we conducted an exploratory study at the Montenvers-Mer-de-Glace, a so-called glacier-related LCT destination. First, the study includes a quantitative survey whose objective is to test different constructs (place attachment, landscape perception, emotions, motivations, and environmental worldview) on intentions to adopt pro-environmental behaviour (based on Halpenny's 2010 scale). Then, semi-structured interviews were conducted with visitors on the field with the aim to identify the consonnance strategies they developped to sustain their behaviours.Succinctly, the quantitative survey shows that perceiving glacial landscape asthe reflection of climate change effects as well as emotion felt increase the intention to adopt pro-environmental behaviours. Moreover, the qualitative interviews show that justifications (consonnance strategies) for not acting come from a lack of knowledge and understanding of scientific data, or from a lack of knowledge concerning the existing alternatives (e.g. mobility). These results allow stakeholders to reconsider the communication on the glacier sites by focusing on the so identified lack of knowledge and by proposing and presenting possible alternatives and actions to be taken to reduce the GHG emissionsAs a conclusion, we argue that tourism – and espacially tourism related to endengered places – can be an interesting lever to promote sustainable behaviours and to raise willingness to act for mitigating climate change.

Domaines

Géographie
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Dates et versions

halshs-03453485 , version 1 (28-11-2021)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-03453485 , version 1

Citer

Emmanuel Salim, Ludovic Ravanel. The role of endangered destinations in climate change education: exploratory perspectives in the glacier tourism context. 19th Swiss Geoscience Meeting, Nov 2021, Genève, Switzerland. ⟨halshs-03453485⟩
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