Sustainability Nudges While Booking a Flight on an OTA Website

In recent years the ecological impact of Tourism has been more and more considered, raising the issue of how to ensure higher levels of sustainability. Especially when it comes to flights, the issue of energy consumption and of exploring strategies to reduce the CO2 footprint of civil aviation has attracted a special attention, in particular while taking into account the so-called attitude-behavior gap, which describes major discrepancies between what people say about their commitment to sustainability and what they actually do when taking decisions. A possible strategy to address such issues is leveraging on “nudges” while persons are exploring available flights on an online travel agency’s platform (OTA), ensuring that they are adequately informed and offered good – more sustainable – alternatives. Based on the current literature and on the analyzed cases, this study presents a first map of twelve possible types of nudges, organized in four main categories: CO2 emissions, transportation mode, CO2 compensation, and sustainability efforts. Moreover, it shows their actual, quite limited, presence on ten major OTAs.