The "sustainable tourist". Values, attitudes and personality traits

This paper reports the results of two exploratory studies (overall N=532) which aimed at drawing the profile of the ‘sustainable tourist’ (a person committed to respect the sustainability principles when on holiday) in terms of personal values, attitudes and personality traits, following an environmental psychology approach. More specifically, study 1 explored the role of Attitudes Towards Sustainable Tourism (ATST), Affinity Towards (social and environmental) Diversity (ATD), and personal values, while study 2 assessed the role of the Big Five personality traits in the prediction of preferences for sustainable and unsustainable tourist activities. Results indicate that biospheric values, positive attitudes towards sustainable tourism, and higher levels of affinity towards diversity are able to predict more sustainable tourism choices while personality traits seemed to play a more indirect and complex role.