Will Free Beer Make Travelers More Responsible?

Elaine Glusac

Earlier this month, when the tourism office of Copenhagen announced it would reward travelers with freebies for taking conscientious actions like using public transportation, proponents of sustainable travel cheered the adoption of a strategy that would encourage responsible behavior.

“Tourists want to feel good about doing something sustainable without feeling ashamed,” said Paloma Zapata, the chief executive of Sustainable Travel International, which works with destinations and travel operators to address climate and community impacts. “These programs make sustainable tourism very tangible.”

In the carrot-versus-stick debate, punitive policies like charging day visitors a fee in Venice have dominated the conversation. But an emerging set of policies is designed to guide and reward travelers’ good behavior. Visitors might need the push. A new Booking.com survey of 31,000 travelers globally found that while 75 percent of travelers want to travel more sustainably in the next year, 45 percent admitted it was not a primary consideration when planning a trip. And 28 percent said they are tired of hearing about climate change.

Incentives aim to bridge the gap between intention and action. Jonathon Day, an associate professor in the hospitality and tourism school of Purdue University, said tourism programs that positively reinforce good behavior may be more effective at a time when many vacationers just want to let go.

“In the past, we’ve said, ‘People should just do the right thing and if they’re educated, they’ll do it,’ but that’s not the case,” Mr. Day said. “In the moment, people forget.”

Increasingly, he added, destinations are guiding visitors “by using the smartest technology, gamification, behavioral science and incentive management, which is so much more productive than just saying, ‘Travelers should do better.’”

Organizations with reward systems address a range of sustainability goals, including caring for the environment, easing overtourism, supporting local business and sustaining cultures, as the following programs illustrate.

Introduced in January, the Florida Keys Eco-Experience Trail pass encourages travelers to visit 55 nature-focused attractions throughout the island chain. Checking in at any of them awards points that registered users can accumulate and exchange for destination-branded prizes like tote bags. It also offers discounts and perks from paid attractions.

“It’s a connect-and-protect initiative,” said George Fernandez, the interim director of the Monroe County Tourist Development Council, which manages tourism marketing in the Florida Keys. “We’re encouraging people to consider our precious environment and motivating them to take action.”

The program not only promotes the region’s eco-attractions but gamifies exploration and attempts to spread visitors out across the 125-mile-long island chain from Key Largo to Key West. The trail includes state parks, a coral reef research center, wildlife refuges and commercial scuba diving, snorkeling, kayaking and fishing operators.

With the pass, travelers who visit the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key, for example, earn $3 off admission and six points. In Key West, visitors who take snorkeling, dolphin-watching and other trips with Honest Eco Tours are awarded 10 points and a free T-shirt.

Users who amass 40 points can turn them in for a Keys-branded accessory pouch. Those with 100 points get a tote bag. “You’re thanking the travelers,” Mr. Fernandez said of the swag. “People appreciate that.”

Between the 2014 opening of the Sea to Sky Gondola in coastal British Columbia, delivering riders nearly 3,000 feet above Howe Sound, and the pandemic-era surge to outdoor places, the town of Squamish, between Vancouver and Whistler, experienced a surge in visitors, particularly in the busy summer season.

This summer, to keep its hiking trails and camping sites clean, Tourism Squamish introduced the Red Bag Program in which ambassadors stationed at popular trailheads and parks distribute free red plastic garbage bags. The staff encourages hikers and campers to use the bags to haul out their trash and pick up any they find along the way for a reward.

After turning in a bag of garbage at the visitor information center, travelers receive a token to be exchanged at participating local businesses for a free coffee, craft beer or ice cream cone.

“We want to make sure they pack out what they pack in,” said Shawna Lang, the director of destination marketing and member engagement for Tourism Squamish. “We’re giving them a tool, and a little incentive goes a long way.”

Running until September, the program addresses two pillars of sustainable travel: environmental impact and community benefits. “Especially for those out camping and hiking, we want to encourage them to support one or more local businesses,” Ms. Lang added.

Palau — an archipelago in Micronesia — was poised to launch the sustainable travel incentive program Olau Palau in 2022, but the 2021 arrival of Covid-19 to the remote island nation sapped tourism, which has been slow to recover, and shelved the initiative.

Now set to launch in late 2024, Olau Palau will take a cultural approach to the rewards system. It promises special experiences like meetings with locals or access to private spaces after travelers reach a threshold of points, which are accumulated by participating in activities such as purchasing reef-safe sunscreen, patronizing businesses that are reducing their environmental impact, and visiting culturally significant sites.

“We hope the gamification process will get people excited and they get a reward and in the meantime they learn a little about our culture,” said Jennifer Koskelin-Gibbons, the co-founder of the Palau Legacy Project, which is spearheading Olau Palau and previously developed the Palau Pledge, a passport vow to uphold sustainable practices that visitors must sign at immigration. “To protect our environment we need to protect our language and culture,” she added.

The word “olau” in Palauan means “to invite in,” and Olau Palau will extend invitations to visit special places — like a private taro patch or a men’s meeting house — for which travelers would pay locals a fee as a way to stimulate local spending.

“We’re not going to give you a discount on anything,’” Ms. Koskelin-Gibbons added, “but we’re saying, ‘You’re of the right ilk to be sensitive and to come into a family- or clan-tied space.’”

In 2019, Hawaii had one of its busiest years in terms of tourist numbers, drawing over 10 million visitors. But the boom was straining local communities and the environment, which propelled the Hawaii Tourism Authority to reconsider its metrics.

In 2020, it introduced Malama Hawaii, based on the Hawaiian word for “to care for.” It aimed to attract visitors to volunteer experiences — many of them in nature, such as beach cleanups and tree plantings — by offering discounted hotel rooms, free meals or hotel credits in exchange. Since its introduction, the program continues to compensate volunteers with rewards such as discounts of up to 15 percent off rooms at Castle Resorts & Hotels. But a new category of opportunities touts the virtues of volunteering as the sole psychic reward.

“These experiences are found nowhere else,” said Kalani L. Kaanaana, the chief stewardship officer at the Hawaii Tourism Authority, noting that the program has “shifted to be about community partnerships and making new experiences possible.”

In the first quarter of 2024, less than 5 percent of Americans visiting Hawaii reported participating in a volunteer program, according to state statistics. But with 9.6 million visitors to Hawaii in 2023, even small percentages are appreciable. Between early March and mid-July this year, 463 visitors participated in a Malama Hawaii activity, generating an estimated 1,400 hours of service.

“I would consider it a success because it’s offered a new category of things people know Hawaii for and what we offer our guests,” Mr. Kaanaana said.