Measuring sustainable tourism attitude scale (SUS-TAS) in an Eastern island context

The concept of sustainability has been widely accepted in tourism to mitigate the detrimental effects of mass tourism. However, developing a valid scale and testing it in cross-cultural settings is critical in evaluating sustainable tourism outcomes. This study examines the validity of the Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS) in an Eastern island context. We adopted competing models testing, cross-cultural validity examination, and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses. Data were collected from three archipelagoes in Taiwan. A seven correlated-factor model was identified as the best-fitting model. Cross-cultural validity demonstrates that SUS-TAS shares the same psychometric properties originally found in Choi and Sirakaya (2005), and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses support the concept that SUS-TAS has the same cognitive framework across the three groups. The findings suggest that SUS-TAS can be used to assess resident attitudes toward sustainable tourism in an Eastern island context. Implications for future research and managerial practice are discussed. •Cross-cultural validity of the Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS) tested.•Cross-cultural validity of SUS-TAS confirmed in an eastern islands, Taiwan sample.•Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) found SUS-TAS to have measurement invariance across islands.•SUS-TAS confirmed a tool for managers to assess resident attitude of sustainable tourism in an eastern island context.