Inside the Traveler’s Mind
Is Sustainability Important to Travelers & Which Segments Care?
A 4-Part Interactive & Practical Program
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Why It's Worth It:
Learn to recognize which personas matter most in your destination,
Curate experiences and messages that resonate with each group, and
Leave with a ready-to-pilot action plan to drive smarter destination design and meaningful change.
Understand what travelers are looking for when it comes to sustainability and how to effectively message to them through this practical 4-part program.
In 2021 Milena Nikolova and Simon Jones defined three personas that represent how travelers engage with (and care about) sustainability efforts. These were based on decades of experience working with destinations and businesses and were published in 2022. Academic research conducted since then has also reinforced these personas.
From the enthusiastic Know-It-All-er, to the aspirational Want-To-Be-er, to the unengaged Couldn’t-Care-Less-er. Each sustainability persona responds differently to your messaging and sustainability efforts. This program helps you understand these personas and turn insights into action for your destination.
What You Get:
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3 interactive sessions (90 / 75 / 75 minutes)
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Bonus ‘Bring Your Question’ Session for tailored Q&A
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Expert facilitation from Milena Nikolova and Simon Jones
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Lots of great examples and models to learn from
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Hands-on tools: persona worksheets, experience maps, messaging templates
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Peer exchange with other destination leaders
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A ready-to-pilot action plan tailored to your visitors
More on the Program
Scroll left & right for details on each of the program elements.
Session One:
Meet the Traveler Sustainability Personas
January 21st, 2026 | 90 Minutes
4pm Central Europe, 10am US East Coast, 7am US West Coast
Discover the three sustainability personas and why they matter for your destination. Then take a closer look at the Know-It-All-er traveler - how they behave, why they’re key audiences for sustainable tourism, how to engage with them authentically, and maintain credibility with this group. You’ll also begin mapping your own unique customer profiles and explore the cross-over & connections with the sustainability mindsets.
What You Get:
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Clarity on all three sustainability personas
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A deeper understanding of the Know-It-All-er
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Know-It-All-er Persona Fact Sheet
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A sharper insight of your own customer profiles to relate to the sustainability personas, including a Customer Profile Identification Worksheet
Session Four: Bring Your Question Session
February 25th, 2026 | 75 Minutes
4pm Central Europe, 10am US East Coast, 7am US West Coast
Join the TourismWORKS and BehaviorSMART teams for tailored, small group discussions about your specific ideas, plans, and questions. Receive expert advice and opportunities for brainstorming your next-steps in designing tourism experiences, crafting messaging, and smarter destination strategies for sustainable tourism.
Session Three: Messaging Strategies for Impact
February 18th, 2026 | 75 Minutes
4pm Central Europe, 10am US East Coast, 7am US West Coast
Get to know the Couldn’t-Care-Less-er and why sustainability isn’t a priority for them. Then, explore how you can influence their choices by making sustainable options the easiest - and most satisfying - path. Discover practical messaging strategies for all three sustainability personas and identify low-cost, high-impact interventions that resonate even with disengaged audiences. Finally, you’ll turn insights from all three sessions into a mini action plan to drive meaningful change in your destination.
What you get:
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A deeper understanding of the Couldn’t-Care-Less-er
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Couldn’t-Care-Less-er Persona Fact Sheet
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Messaging for Desired Behaviors Cheat Sheet
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A ready-to-pilot action plan for at least one persona, plus a framework for integrating all three into their broader customer profiling and destination strategy
Session Two: Designing for Influence
February 4th, 2026 | 75 Minutes
4pm Central Europe, 10am US East Coast, 7am US West Coast
Dive deeper into the Want-To-Be-er persona to understand their balancing act between convenience and responsibility. Using behavioral science, learn how to tailor the design of your tourism experiences to motivate this traveler without making sustainability feel like a burden. The session will include practical examples and group working sessions to map out effective experiences that engage the different sustainability personas.
What You Get:
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A deeper understanding of the Want-To-Be-er
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Want-To-Be-er Persona Fact Sheet
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A fresh perspective on how to leverage unique, tailored experience mapping to engage this sustainability persona, including a Tourism Experience Journey Map Worksheet
Meet the Experts
Milena Nikolova, PhD
Chief Behavior Officer
Milena’s superpower is reading traveler hearts and minds.
She applies psychology to help the tourism sector tackle its toughest challenge using behavior change to normalize good choices and create harmony between business success and positive impact. As co-founder of BehaviorSMART, she and her team work with destinations and enterprises to design practical strategies that turn human psychology into smarter operations, stronger markets, and more regenerative outcomes. A frequent speaker at global industry forums, Milena publishes widely on traveler psychology and sustainability, including the first book to explore how behavioral science can transform strategic decision-making in tourism.
Simon Jones
Founder & Tourism Expert
Simon is the founder of TourismWORKS and NatureScapes.
For the last 20+ years Simon has worked with destinations, governments, businesses, and NGO’s around the world to plan and develop sustainable tourism and create immersive and engaging tourism experiences. Through this work he has created a suite of practical programs that break tourism down into bite-sized, manageable and easy to implement steps for destinations and businesses. He has trained hundreds of tourism professions and co-authored with Milena a chapter of the book 'Nature-based Tourism and Wellbeing' on how shifts in consumer behavior shape new realities for tourism destinations.
Price
Standard Price: €550 / $640 per person
Includes all 3 live sessions (90 / 75 / 75 minutes), plus the bonus Office Hours Drop-In,
expert facilitation, and a full toolkit of persona worksheets, experience maps, and action plan templates.
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3 interactive sessions (90 / 75 / 75 minutes) to understand persona’s of the:
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Know-It-All-er
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Want-To-Be-er
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Couldn’t-Care-Less-er
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Bonus ‘Bring Your Question’ Session for tailored Q&A
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Expert facilitation from Milena Nikolova and Simon Jones
-
Lots of great examples and models to learn from
-
Hands-on tools, including:
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Know-It-All-er persona worksheet
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Want-To-Be-er persona worksheet
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Couldn’t-Care-Less-er persona worksheet
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Customer profile worksheet
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Tourism experience journey map worksheet
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Traveler messaging templates
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Peer exchange with other destination leaders
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A ready-to-pilot action plan tailored to your visitors
Early Bird Special!
€490 / $570 per person
if booked by December 15th 2025
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If you are interested in this program, but can’t make the dates, please let us know at
Hello@tourismthatworks.com, as we may organize additional sessions in the future.