Eco-hypocrisy and inauthenticity: Criticisms and confessions of the eco-conscious tourist/traveller

Highlights

• Uses Graham et al.'s (2015) typology of moral hypocrisy to analyse inauthenticity

• Investigates inauthenticity and hypocrisy in the context of the eco-conscious tourist

• Hypocrisy attracts social judgment and frustration.

• Draws empirical examples from online platforms, including social media

Abstract

Labels such as the ‘green tourist’, ‘ecotourist’, and the ‘ethical tourist’ are used to claim moral capital and distinguish this tourist from the alternative, viewed as a threat to the destination. However, these tourist groups open themselves up to feelings and criticisms of hypocrisy when they fail to live up to the moral standards they expressly espouse. This hypocrisy may be conceptualised as a form of inauthenticity—not being existentially true to one's own standards. The present netnographic study uses Graham, Meindl, Koleva, Iyer, and Johnson's (2015) typology of moral hypocrisy to illustrate the feelings of inauthenticity and dissonance, and the social condemnation the environmentally conscious tourist/traveller contends with. Findings point to the inescapability of moral weakness, and the inevitability of moral frustration.

Introduction

Tourism researchers have eagerly embraced the notion of the environmentally conscious tourist, or ‘ecotourist’—a type of tourist who proposedly stands in contrast with the alternative, viewed as a threat to the destination (Fennell & Malloy, 1999; Malone, McCabe, & Smith, 2014; Stanford, 2008). However, ecotourists open themselves up to criticisms of ‘eco-hypocrisy’ (Renn, 2011), when they are perceived to fail to live up to the standards they expressly espouse. Social judgment aside, the hypocrisy may be conceptualised as a form of inauthentic Being—a failure to be true to one's own standards. Boaks and Levine (2015, p. 164) capture the link between inauthenticity and hypocrisy aptly: ‘Whether by deception or hypocrisy, inauthentic people apply different moral standards to themselves that they do not extend to others’.

Authenticity is a popular concept in the public and scholarly discourse, with contested interpretations encompassing the character of objects and experiences (see for example, Brown, 2013; Cohen, 1988; MacCannell, 1976; Mkono, 2013; Reisinger & Steiner, 2006). Consistent with this observation, there has been a proliferation in the number of self-help books on how to be ‘authentic’, in an existential sense (Guignon, 2004; Lenton, Slabu, Bruder, & Sedikides, 2014). Lenton et al. (2014) report that a Google search of how to be yourself produces over 60 million hits. But while authenticity has been studied extensively in tourism and other contexts, inauthenticity is less well understood. This paper partially addresses this gap, applying as an interpretive lens, Graham, Meindl, Koleva, Iyer, and Johnson's (2015) typology of moral hypocrisy, in the case of the eco-conscious tourist. Specifically, the paper tackles the question: How does the eco-conscious tourist experience and deal with the intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of hypocrisy or inauthenticity?

Moral hypocrisy occurs when a person explicitly endorses a particular moral standard, and then behaves in violation of it (Tong & Yang, 2011). Put another way, it is an incongruity between an individual's personal behaviours and their publicly expressed beliefs (McDermott, Schwartz, & Vallejo, 2015); the ability to hold a belief and act in discord with it (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007). As Effron, O'Connor, Leroy, and Lucas (2018) note, it is not always easy to practise what you preach. People are motivated to appear moral in order to garner the social and self-rewards of being so, and to avoid the social and self-punishments for failing to be so (Batson, 2008). Hypocrisy is viewed negatively because of the associated inflated ego, self-satisfaction, or sense of superiority over others, brought on by the pretense of being more moral than others (Shelley, 2006).

Examples of hypocrisy, and especially, ‘eco-hypocrisy’ (Cummings, 1999), or the perception of it, are abundant in the public sphere. One example is that of climate change scholars who fly to multiple conferences every year to encourage everyone else to limit their air travel (see Hales and Caton's (2017, p. 94) discussion on proximity ethics and the ‘flyer's dilemma’; Higham & Font, 2020). Higham and Font (2020 p. 1) refer to academics' propensity to fly in spite of being aware of the undesirable environmental impact as a form of ‘climate hypocrisy’. There are also numerous incidents where celebrity figures have faced condemnation for being environmental hypocrites. Recently, the British Royals, Harry and Meghan, were branded hypocrites for using private jets for their trips to Ibiza and the South of France, while purporting to be environmentalists. Critics argued that ‘Harry and Meghan's actions contradict their public stance on climate change, given aviation is one of the world's major polluters and is responsible for more than 2% of global emissions’, noting also that the environmental footprint of a private jet is much greater than that of a commercial plane (CNN, 2019, p. 1). With the affordances of social media virality, such stories spread rapidly, at times precipitating cultural reflection and debate. Whether the criticisms are fair or not, they highlight the morally fraught nature of eco-ethical aspirations and how they translate in the public sphere.

Nonetheless, the ‘eco-’ prefix still holds significant moral capital when viewed in the context of destructive tourist behaviours that are associated with mass tourism in fragile tourist destinations. In the ‘digital society’ (Lahlou, 2008; Stratton, Powell, & Cameron, 2017), where fakery and realness are continually debated, however, the ‘eco’ label lends itself well to the contestation of authenticity and inauthenticity. Thus, referencing eco-travel related examples drawn from a range of online platforms, including social media, this paper seeks to illuminate our understanding of the evolving conceptions of the authentic and inauthentic self, as they pertain to ordinary people, and in some instances, to celebrity figures.