The Role of Intellectual Humility in Sustainable Tourism Development

In this study, we examined the role of intellectual humility (IH) as an antecedent of individual attitude toward sustainable tourism viewed from the lens of personality trait theory, virtue ethics theory, and regenerative tourism principles within a stakeholder framework. Data were collected via Qualtrics in an online survey of 233 adults in the United States. A series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were applied to the data to test the measurement model. In addition, a bifactor CFA was found to have acceptable fit and appropriate in controlling for common method variance. A series of covariance-based structural equations models (SEMs) was estimated to test the hypothesized model while controlling for common method variance in addition to individual age and gender. Using the chi-square difference test for nested model comparison, we found that intellectual humility was a significant antecedent of the negative ecological impact of tourism (β = 0.14, p < 0.01) while its relationships with economic and social impacts of travel became non-significant after controlling for common method variance. Pro-social tendency, operationalized as HEXACO Honesty–Humility, was also a significant antecedent of the negative ecological impact (β = 0.17) and positive economic impact (β = −0.34) of tourism, after controlling for common method variance. Despite its limitations due to its cross-sectional design and use of self-report data in the U.S., this study was novel in introducing intellectual humility as an important virtue to be cultivated at the individual level to achieve a holistic approach to sustainable tourism, especially in shaping destination choices. In addition, the study highlights the need to detect common method variance in self-report data via bifactor CFA to avoid erroneous reporting of significant findings, hampering our collective research efforts to address climate change and its impact.