Why BehaviorSMART™ - BehaviorSMART™

Mission

BehaviorSMART is a new-generation knowledge- and data-driven company that makes sustainability actually work. We enable travel enterprises and destinations to make sustainability effortless, non-negotiable and profitable by using insights about how people think, decide and act.

Vision

To enable future-proof tourism economies that align with sustainable development goals by applying behavioural science knowledge and data to travel’s most pressing challenges.

A new kind of advisery

We are a team of experts drawing on knowledge in tourism, sustainability, data, economic and behavioural sciences to offer human-led insights and solutions to the travel sector’s biggest challenge, supporting global sustainable development. Led by Milena Nikolova, who is the author of the first book that applies behavioural economics to travel, we are the leaders in applying behavioural knowledge to the travel and tourism sector to make sustainability actually work.

WHO WE ARE – visit our Team page

How can we apply behavioural economics to travel and tourism? READ WTTC + Harvard Insights

Want to learn more? Visit our Knowledge Corner to read more about behavioural economics and explore some of our favourite videos, podcasts, and readings.

Our Insights in Action

We are human — we do not make decisions as expected by standard models of rationality. Institutions, societies and businesses often assume that when we are faced with a choice, we proactively collect all relevant information, before carefully calculating the pros and cons to rationally select the right option. In reality, when we need to make a decision, we rarely collect all the available information, we often seek shortcuts to help us avoid considering all the pros and cons, and we let emotions and biases influence our choice. In many cases, we end up making the choice that deviates from rationality and common sense.

Many systems in society, including the tourism industry, are designed around these unrealistic assumptions about how people think, decide and act, and this has fueled some of the biggest challenges the travel industry is facing today. As leading advisors in human behaviour and sustainable tourism, we apply the most current insights from behavioural sciences to design and develop programmemes and solutions that optimise the sustainability and profitability of travel destinations and businesses.

Explore how we’ve helped design and developed places with purpose using BehaviorSMART™ thinking.

OUR WORK

Where do BehaviorSMART™ Principles Come From?

BehaviorSMART™ thinking is grounded in behavioural economics, a relatively young field of knowledge that borrows insights from psychology and neuroscience to explain why people make the decisions they make in different everyday situations. It focuses particularly on the instances when our choices are not optimal and contradict common sense:

Why is it that many of us know exactly what foods and drinks are bad for our health but continue to consume them?
Why is it that we are convinced we will start saving more next week when we consistently fail to keep this promise?
Why is it that we are vocal about the risks of texting while driving when we see someone else do it, yet we believe that we are unlikely to be in an accident if we do it?

Learn more about how we work in travel and tourism and our process.

OUR APPROACH

Where do BehaviorSMART™ Principles Come From

Schenströmska Herrgården Mansion House about us

Milena is a great professional to work with. She gave incredibly good tips that were very useful for the management of Schenströmska Herrgården mansion and changed our perspective. I found especially useful the smarter packaging that allowed us to offer our guests a better selection. I warmly recommend any hospitality business who wants to achieve more through new, smarter and fun tactics to hire Milena. She will give you amazing tools.
- Sofia Granlund
- Head of Sales
- Schenströmska Herrgården Mansion House