Entries by beSmart

The First Mile™

Behavior change can power smart progress towards sustainability that is efficient, low-investment and enables the later efforts. Focusing on the first mile of the journey makes operations smarter and more efficient but it also sets solid foundations for the next miles in the future. by Milena S. Nikolova Behavioral expert and co-founder of BehaviorSMART We […]

Market Mentality

Understanding and adapting to shifts in markets and societies that will shape new opportunities for tourism destinations and businesses. The travel industry will look very different in 2025 than it did prior to 2020, but how do we reach 2025 stronger than when the decade started?  This is the final article in a 7-part series, […]

The Price is Right

Price is a very powerful signal. It goes much beyond providing information about the monetary value of a service or experience. It influences perceptions, decisions and actions in ways that remain underutilised in the travel sector. This article offers some insights and helpful hints on pricing tourism experiences. This article is part of a series, […]

Planning Tourism for Reality, Not Hopes and Dreams

With this week’s article we take a look at how behavior-smart thinking can enhance milestone efforts such as creating a tourism plan for a destination. We put the spotlight on the small behavioural barriers that can make a lengthy and complex process of developing a tourism plan ineffective, and outline some simple tactics that can […]

Sustainable by Design – Part 2: Making Sustainability Non-Negotiable (the solutions)

  With this 2-part article we take a look at how behavior-smart thinking can provide easy and low-investment solutions to help businesses, sites and attractions make sustainability a non-negotiable principle in their operations, rather than an optional extra for visitors to select.  The second part of this article offers an overview of the behavioral mechanisms […]

Sustainable by Design – Part 1: A Story

With this 2-part article we take a look at how behavior-smart thinking can provide easy and low-investment solutions to help businesses, sites and attractions make sustainability a non-negotiable principle in their operations, rather than an optional extra for visitors to select.  The first part of this article is primarily written as a story to provide […]

Promoting Positive Behavior in Nature (with Bob…)

Most of us would agree that the images below are not something we would do or encourage. However such negative behavior is often inadvertent, happening because someone either doesn’t know any better, they are not thinking about the impact of their actions, or the design of the activity misses the opportunity to nudge behavior in […]

Changing Behavior to Mitigate Overtourism

Human decisions and actions are shaped by two main groups of factors — internal (related to one’s personal characteristics, experience, state of mind), and external (related to the immediate surrounding and behavior of companions). The same situation can trigger completely different actions by the same individual depending on whether they are on their own, with […]

Be Smart in Nature

As humans, we often act illogically… but many of our tourism systems are designed around unrealistic assumptions that people are consistently rational and logical in their decisions. Why?  The answer to these questions can frequently be found through a deeper understanding of human behavior and thought processes. With this knowledge we can guide decision-making processes, […]

Declaration

Our team at BehaviorSMART declares our shared commitment to contribute to the uniting of all stakeholders in transforming tourism to deliver effective climate action. We support the global commitment to halve emissions by 2030 and reach Net Zero as soon as possible before 2050. We will consistently align our actions with the latest scientific recommendations, […]