Predicting sustainable tourism preferences: The role of general and specific personality dispositions

In this paper, we build on the Values-Beliefs-Norms (VBN) theory and the psychosocial approach to the analysis of sustainable tourism preferences to explore the role of general and specific personality traits in the prediction of tourists’ preferences for sustainable tourism activities and services. We noticed that studies on personality traits as predictors of sustainable tourism choices were scarce and had led to inconclusive results. We, thus, posited that some of the reasons could be linked to the (low) level of specificity at which personality factors have been measured in this field, as well as to the scarce understanding of their relationships with other well-known predictors of the same choices. To provide a preliminary evaluation of this contention we carried out an exploratory survey study (N = 323) which compared the role of one general (i.e., need for cognitive closure) and two context specific (i.e., social value orientation and affinity towards diversity) personality traits, as adjunctive predictors of people’s preferences for sustainable tourism choices, within a well-established theoretical model of pro-environmental behaviors: The VBN theory. Results confirmed previous findings that the key factors of the VBN (i.e., personal values, general and specific attitudes and personal norms) can predict tourists’ sustainable holiday choices. Moreover, the study added to the existing literature by showing that a general/broad personality trait (such as the need for cognitive closure) may indirectly predict individuals’ more specific stable orientations (affinity towards diversity and social value orientations), which, in turn, may predict individual preferences for sustainable tourism choices and activities more directly. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are also discussed.