Nudge My Tour

In the current post-Covid-19 recovery context, the tourism ecosystem is at a crossroads: either to go back to a “business as usual” model and therefore keep the exponential growth that created an unbearable pressure in many destinations, or commit for a more responsible recovery, and a radical change of its model.

The Covid-19 crisis has shown how crucial the tourism sector is for our economies, and at the same time recent studies demonstrated the high impact of tourism-related activities on the global carbon emissions.

Within this context, the first step for a more sustainable recovery can be the change of behavioural patterns within existing tourism systems. For this purpose, the application of behavioural science to the management of tourism flows can have a huge potential.

The Erasmus+ Nudge My Tour project contributes to this new approach. Started in November 2021 and running until December 2023, it will be the first ever European project to combine applied behavioural science and tourism.

Nudge My Tour brings together 7 partners from 5 European countries and will allow to increase the capacities of tourism planning and management professionals and university students about the application of behaviour-based measures and Nudge-based actions to the management of tourism flows and the prevention of unsustainable behaviours in a tourism site.

The partners will develop and test three capacity building tools, that will then be put at the disposal of the widest community:

1. A training methodology about the application of behavioural science to tourism, addressed to current and future professionals working in destination planning, management and promotion;
2. An informative toolkit providing hands-on information about the tourism-related challenges, the key aspects of behavioural science and the Nudge theory, and insights on their potential application on the management of tourism flows;
3. A compilation of Nudges and other behaviour-based interventions applied to tourism-related challenges, but also measures tested in other sectors and that can be applied to similar travel and tourism-related issues.

CAST Scientific coordinator: Francesco Maria Barbini
Research team: Massimo Giovanardi, Manuela Presutti, Laura Vici, Lorenzo Zirulia
Programme: Erasmus+