Why telling holidaymakers about risk isn’t enough

Safer Tourism Foundation has launched a behavioural science programme to help travel companies address the Holiday Head mindset that causes travellers to take risks on holiday they wouldn’t take at home.

Safer Tourism CEO Katherine Atkinson says:  “People behave differently on holiday.  And until now, no one has ever been able to explain why we abandon normal safety precautions on holiday.  From abandoning seatbelts, to walking home alone late at night, to skiing after a boozy lunch, there is a Holiday Head mindset that makes us take risks we’d never normally take at home, putting our own lives in danger and threatening the lives and wellbeing of others”.

Helping travel companies combat the holiday head mindset

Having spent the last two years studying for a Masters in behavioural science, Safer Tourism’s CEO believes that travel companies are missing a trick when it comes to managing and mitigating travel risks.

Katherine continues:  “Applying some of the lessons from behavioural science could unlock travel-related behaviours that seem so counter-intuitive, helping travel companies prevent serious customer harm. It could also boost a stronger safety culture within destination management companies and other suppliers”.

Stop us from doing foolish and dangerous things on holiday

Katherine adds:  “Travel companies need to find new ways to engage with travellers to keep them safe without ruining the holiday idyll the marketing teams have worked so hard to create.  But no matter how appealing the visuals, clever the content or engaging the soundtrack, information alone doesn’t stop us from doing foolish and dangerous things on holiday”.

Understanding the psychology that drives decision-making is key to influencing the process and to encouraging travellers to behave in a way that will keep them out of harm.  Safer Tourism’s Behavioural Science initiative was launched in November 2022 to help travel companies understand what drives individual behaviours as well as how to use behavioural science tools to unravel the traveller’s decision-making process.  The aim is not only to support travel companies’ risk-management strategies but also to ensure customer communications build on this deeper understanding of what makes us tick when we travel.

For more information about Safer Tourism’s Behavioural Science Programme, contact Katherine.atkinson@safertourism.org.uk.