Polar Bears, Climate Change, and Trusted Messengers: Informing the Contextual Model of Transformative Learning Theory

Nature-based tourism is often touted as an inherently effective form of ecotourism, where visitors become ambassadors for the places they visit and participate in transformative experiences. However, research demonstrates that behavior change and transformative experiences remain elusive. This study builds upon the Contextual Model of Learning and Transformative Learning Theory by exploring visitors' learning and behavior change at both in situ and ex situ polar bear tourism experiences. A detailed conceptual analysis and integration of existing literature provides evidence to support an integration of these learning frameworks to more effectively guide the intentional design of visitor experiences in order to target specific outcomes and domains of learning. This paper offers an important next step in providing a guiding process to facilitate and evaluate free-choice learning experiences that seek to offer visitors more intentionally designed, impactful, and potentially transformative experiences.