“On Holidays, I Forget Everything… Even My Ecological Footprint”: Sustainable Tourism through Daily Practices or Compartmentalisation as a Keyword?

Abstract

In today’s struggle against climate change and for less dependence on fossil fuels, why do people who adopt practices with a lower impact on the environment forget them during their holidays? This contribution sheds new light on sustainable tourism by focusing on daily practices during holidays. Based on the concrete practices of holidaymakers, this contribution proposes to understand some factors and contexts favouring the persistence, the transformation or the abandonment of sustainable practice(s) during holidays. The theoretical framework of this research mainly draws on social practice theories. The empirical material is made of 38 biographical in-depth and crossed interviews: twenty on daily practices with young adults (25–35 years old) who have adopted at least one more sustainable daily practice and who went on holidays for the past year reinforced by 18 interviews with some of their parents.