Travel-induced learning: a validation of the sustainability insight scale

ABSTRACT

With 2017 as the UN’s International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development and the role of tourism in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring that tourism be designed and managed for sustainability is more imperative than ever. Here we present the Sustainability Insight Scale (SIS), which offers scholars and practitioners a practical tool for assessing sustainability-specific learning. A strong link between travel and learning is well documented, and recent research documents positive links between travel and pro-environmental outcomes. Integrating these writings with scholarship on sustainability meta-competencies, we focus attention on four elements of sustainability insights: temporal thinking, interpersonal literacy, systems thinking, and personal connection to life on the planet. When acquired during travel, these insights are likely important precursors to post-trip pro-environmental behavioural change. With sustainable tourism on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the SIS will be of interest to tourism researchers, planners, and policy makers seeking to promote sustainability education.

KEYWORDS:

• Meta-competencies
• sustainability
• systems thinking
• interpersonal literacy
• temporal thinking
• learning

Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by the Alchemy Fund of the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Carter Hunt http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6319-8171

Janet K. Swim http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3279-1308

Notes

1 The other measures were not included in S2. Convergent validity was found for the subscales in S1 and S2 with the exception that going to cultural or history museums was negatively associated with connection to animals and not significantly correlated with connection to people.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Alchemy Fund of the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management at Penn State University: [grant number 223-08].