New theory on tourist behaviour unveiled by Prof. Sara DOLNICAR at PAIR Seminar

At the PAIR Seminar on 14 October 2025, Prof. Sara DOLNICAR of The University of Queensland, Australia, shared her pioneering theory of consumer behaviour during leisure.  Her presentation, titled “Habit-Enjoyment-Effort Theory – Changing Consumer Behaviour in Hedonic Contexts”, explored human behaviours in settings where the pursuit of pleasure is paramount.  The seminar attracted over 170 in-person participants and an online audience of more than 13,800 across various social media platforms. 

Prof. Dolnicar began her speech by providing an overview of the global tourism industry, highlighting its contribution to global carbon emissions and the significance of behavioural theories in enticing pro-environmental behaviours in tourists.  She noted that prevailing theories, such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Value-Belief-Norm Theory, are predominantly cognitive-focused: they assume that human behaviours are guided by cognitive processes and are therefore predictable.  However, these theories are less adept at explaining behaviour in hedonic contexts, where pleasure-seeking is the primary motivation.  

Introducing her Habit-Enjoyment-Effort Theory, Prof. Dolnicar offered an alternative to the existing cognitive-focused models.  Drawing on real-world survey studies conducted in hotels around the world, she demonstrated that this new theory outperforms the Value-Belief-Norm Theory and shows considerable promise in field experiments, where the competing theories were assessed for their construct validity.

In summary, Prof. Dolnicar argued that the current dominant theories adequately support the design of effective behavioural change interventions.  She emphasised the need for ongoing development of new theories, such as the Habit-Effort-Enjoyment Theory, and highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary and university-industry collaborations.  She concluded that preliminary research results generally provided empirical support for this new theory, highlighting that the theory has great potential for further refinement and deserves continued attention and uptake by the industry.

Following the presentation was a lively question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. WANG Dan, Associate Director of Research Centre for Digital Transformation of Tourism (RCDTT) and Professor of School of Hotel and Tourism Management.  Both the on-site and online audiences engaged in a productive discussion with Prof. Dolnicar.