Eco-friendly travel during the cost-of-living crisis: beliefs, emotions, and sentiments in digital discourse

Abstract

The cost-of-living crisis is believed to have shifted attitudes towards travel options, prioritising cost savings over environmental concerns. However, a significant gap remains in identifying the belief structure expressed in public digital discourse regarding adopting eco-friendly travel in extreme contexts (e.g. cost-of-living crises) using naturally-occurring data. We address this gap using a big-data methodology to scrape and clean 17,379 comments from Reddit and YouTube users posted between 2022 and 2024 (i.e. amid the current cost-of-living crisis) regarding eco-friendly travel. The final cleaned corpus comprised 10,603 comments. Cleaned data were assessed using thematic, sentiment and emotion analyses. Guided by an integrated analytical lens drawing on the Planned Behaviour, Value-Belief-Norm, and Socio-Technical Systems theories, our results suggest a five-theme belief structure: Transport, Community Impact, and Accessibility; Personal Perspectives and Everyday Experiences; Travel Choices and Infrastructure Development; Environmental Sustainability and Climate Action; and Societal Policies and Public Concerns. Sentiment analysis indicates 80% negativity and 18% positivity, with uncertainty as the most common emotion (37%). Systemic barriers, financial stresses, and inequitable policies fuelled widespread frustration, yet personal agency and adaptive strategies offered some optimism. Semi-structured interviews with nine experts helped contextualise the findings and refine their practical implications.