"Mountain-Bike (MTB) Tourism has experienced significant growth in European alpine destinations, including Sweden. This growing form of tourism sector’s contribution to climate change is exacerbated by MTB tourists' reliance on private motorized modes in their mobility behaviours, posing a significant threat to its sustainable tourism future. To encourage a modal shift towards climate -friendly mobility alternatives among MTB tourists, a consumer-centric behavioural approach is proposed, considering its limited application in tourist mobility studies. Accordingly, we examine how the concurrent influence of MTB tourists’ socio-psychological dispositions informs their intentions to engage in sustainable inter-destination mobility behaviours. Furthermore, we analyze the discrepancies that exist between the tourists’ socio-psychological dispositions and their intentions and the underlying reasons explaining such gaps. The socio-psychological dispositions such as MTB tourists' travelling habits, their perceived mobility infrastructural needs, environmental values, goals related to sustainable mobility, and enduring involvement in mountain biking are discussed.
The theories of Goal framing theory, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Attribution theory are employed in this project. Two research studies are designed based on an explanatory sequential mixed-method research design. The first study adopts a quantitative approach with a conditional mediation analysis in Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling to analyze the combined influence of sociopschological dispositions on MTB tourists' intention to engage in sustainable interdestination mobility behaviours. The second study employs a qualitative laddering technique based on semi-structured interviews to analyze the discrepancies that exist between MTB tourists' socio-pschological dispositions and their sustainable interdestination mobility intentions.
We intend to provide insights into how the sustainable accessibility to (selected) mountain bike destinations in Sweden, functions and is experienced by mountain bike tourists, driving their choice and compliance towards them. These findings can be used to promote sustainable mobility behaviours among this tourist segment and further develop sustainable mobility infrastructures reaching MTB destinations in Sweden."