Climate hypocrisy and the attitudes of European Union tourists towards the environment

The aim of this study is to analyse the travel habits that tourists are willing to change in order to become more respectful of the environment (EV) and mitigate their impact on climate change (CC). We first analyse the different types of mitigating actions ranging from travel inhibition to denialism and refusal to change habits, as well as different types of mitigation such as prevention, minimisation, compensation in an effort to offset (e.g. planting trees) and even payment for polluting. We then present the different individual (socio-demographic, cultural) and contextual factors that influence the willingness to change habits. We take Eurobarometer data and analyse them with Stata, using the Generalised Structural Equation Modelling (GSEM) technique. The results show that there is climate hypocrisy and a clear behavioural difference between tourism consumption and everyday consumption. Those most willing to change are highly educated people, women and young people. The wealth of countries positively influences people's willingness to pay more to protect the environment or benefit the local community, but negatively influences other habits, which shows that people in rich countries are not necessarily the most environmentally conscious or inclined to be climate-friendly and mitigate CC.