ABSTRACT
There exists a considerable body of research showing that air travellers and tourists are generally more unwilling to change behaviour in favour of more environmentally friendly transport modes or fewer journeys, even among environmentally aware travellers (Barr et al,. 2010; McKercher et al,. 2010). As a result, offsetting of emissions has been discussed as an alternative way of dealing with rising emissions from in particular air travel, for which specific consumer interest has been detected (e.g. Gössling et al, 2009; Lu and Shon, 2012; Mair, 2011; McKercher et al., 2010). However, setting aside various systemic and practical problems associated with carbon offsets (e.g. Gössling et al., 2007), voluntary uptake of offsetting purchases has been slow, and generally on the order of a few percent of overall emissions (Gössling et al., 2009; McKercher et al., 2010). Various reasons for this have been presented, including a disbelief in climate change, a belief that reducing emissions is not one’s own responsibility, or that carbon offsetting is not a valid and credible approach to dealing with emissions from aviation (Gössling et al., 2009). In light of this, yet another approach would seek to understand travellers’ willingness to contribute to carbon offsetting or pro-environmental initiatives more generally, i.e. based on measures not involving a direct cost. This chapter presents the results of a study investigating willingness to donate frequent flyer points for charitable purposes.
