A cluster analysis of climate change mitigation behaviours among SMTEs

Abstract

Research on tourism and climate change has emphasised the contribution that the sector should make to the effort to reduce and stabilise greenhouse gas emissions. However the tourism sector response on the supply side has been disappointing and highly variable between and within its sub-sectors. This paper addresses the knowledge gap on the willingness and capacity for tourism businesses to mitigate. Innovation is used as the conceptual framework. At the firm level, mitigation requires innovation yet businesses innovate at different rates and hence their ability to contribute towards emissions reductions varies. A Cluster Analysis is presented of over 400 accommodation providers from Southwest England, a major UK destination region. Three distinctive clusters of SMTEs are identified based on how they innovated to mitigate climate change. The smallest (12%) had introduced a range of process and managerial innovations and was most forward-thinking and active. A second cluster (23%) had introduced several process innovations but its approach to managerial innovations was both partial and confused. The largest cluster (65%) had mainly enacted straightforward process innovations but failed to introduce managerial innovations to measure, monitor and act on their environmental performance. Taken together, these data suggest that the contribution from accommodation providers to emissions reductions targets has been at best modest. Moving forward, greater analytical precision is needed if (this part of) the tourism sector is to be widely mobilised towards tackling climate change. Specifically, policy interventions have to be more effectively targeted at business needs and based on a more differentiated view of planned and enacted behaviour changes. One-size-fits-all prescriptions are inappropriate, arguably even counter-productive for encouraging the greatest level of mitigation activity across the widest range of tourism businesses.