Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 723–726, 20090160-7383/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715–734 723

AN EXAMINATION OF LOCALS’ ATTITUDES

Dogan Gursoy,Christina G. Chi

Washington State University, USAPam Dyer

University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

TRODUCTION

Understanding local residents’ attitudes toward tourism development is vitalfor the success and sustainability of any type of tourism development. A largenumber of studies have examined resident attitudes and the factors that arelikely to influence those attitudes. Most of those studies suggest that locals tendto have positive attitudes because they see tourism as an economic developmenttool (Gursoy, Jurowski and Uysal 2002). However, residents’ perceptions of im-pacts and their level of support tend to change as a destination moves fromone stage of destination lifecycle to the next. As suggested by Butler’s (1980) cy-cle of evolution, diminished resident support for tourism development becomesevident as destinations move to latter stages of development. At this stage, tradi-tional economic assessment tools may not be enough to assess locals attitudes be-cause positive and negative socio-cultural influences are also needed to beconsidered in addition to economic and environmental impacts. While residentsmay oppose one type of development, they may be more willing to support an-other type. Thus a continuing assessment of locals’ attitudes for different typesof development may be necessary to assure sustainability of industry and to man-age more critical aspects that appear as a tourism destination continues to devel-op. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine local residents’ attitudesand the antecedents of those attitudes towards two different types of tourismdevelopment: mass tourism and alternative tourism. Mass tourism developmentin this study is defined as attractions and facilities designed to accommodatelarge numbers of tourist. Alternative tourism development is defined as attrac-tions and facilities designed for eco-tourism, cultural heritage tourism and out-door recreational tourism activities.

The model tested in this study is adopted from Gursoy and Rutherford (2004). Itproposes that the perceptions of economic benefits, social benefits, social costs, so-cio-economic costs, cultural benefits and the state of the local economy are theantecedents of local residents support for both type of tourism development. Italso suggests that those perceptions are influenced by the concern residents havefor their community, their emotional attachment to their community, the degreeto which they are environmentally sensitive, and the extent to which they use thesame resource base that tourists use. In addition, the model suggests that the stateof the local economy influences the perceptions of the benefits and costs of tour-ism development. Please see Gursoy and Rutherford for detailed discussion aboutthe model.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

724 Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715–734

Data for this study were collected from residents of Sunshine Coast, Australia uti-lizing a self-administered survey questionnaire. Data were analyzed by a structuralequation modeling methodology utilizing a two-step approach. Findings indicatedthat the overall fit of the measurement model was acceptable: v2

ð968Þ ¼ 1; 840:65(p = .00); GFI = .90; AGFI = .89; NFI = .94; NNFI = .97; CFI = .97, IFI = .97 andPGFI = .78; PNFI = .85 and critical N = 430.88. Further, the indicators of residuals,RMR (root mean square), standardized RMR and RMSEA (root mean square errorof approximation) were .043, .046 and .035, respectively. However, the review ofthe proposed model revealed that the v2 value was not significant, which indicatedthat the proposed model might be under identified and could be improved. A ser-ies of five nested structural models were tested to identify the best model. Resultsindicated the unconstrained model fitted the data better than the proposedmodel. As a result, it was used to analyze the data. The fit indices also suggestedthat the new model was a better model than the proposed model: GFI = .90;AGFI = .89; NFI = .94; NNFI = .97; CFI = .97, IFI = .97 and PGFI = .78; PNFI = .85and critical N = 431.77. Further, the indicators of residuals, RMR (root meansquare), standardized RMR and RMSEA (root mean square error of approxima-tion) were .043, .047 and .035, respectively.

The unconstrained model indicated that it was necessary to include seven addi-tional paths in the model. As a result, in the accepted unconstrained model, 54paths were estimated. However, only 21 of them found to be statistically signifi-cant in the direction predicted at the .05 probability level. In addition, ten ofthe fifteen new paths identified in the constrained model were found to be sig-nificant at the .05 probability level. The new paths suggested significant interac-tions among the perceived costs and perceived benefits of tourism constructs.Similar findings were also reported by Gursoy and Rutherford (2004). Further-more, these paths suggested that antecedents of attitudes do not only affect theirsupport for tourism development through affecting their perception of cost and/or benefits of tourism development, but also they directly affect their support fortourism development.

Overall findings suggested positive relationships between tourism developmentand perceptions of positive impacts and negative relationships between negativeimpacts perceptions and support for development. Residents who see tourism ascreating positive economic impacts were found to support both mass tourism(b = 10; t = 2.44) and alternative tourism development (b = 17; t = 3.86). However,support for alternative tourism development was found to be higher. This findingis consistent with other studies that positive economic impact is one of the mainreasons for wanting development in local communities (Yoon, Gursoy and Chen2001). However, residents who see tourism as having positive cultural impacts onthe local community were found to support alternative tourism (b = 33; t = 4.77)while they neither were found to support nor oppose mass tourism development(b = .09; t = 1.41). Positive social impact perceptions were found to have no signif-icant relationship with either mass tourism or alternative tourism. This findingsuggested that respondents neither opposed nor supported either form of devel-opment even though they indicated that both form of tourism is likely to gener-ate positive social impact for their community. However, those positive socialimpacts on community were not as significant as residents would have liked itto be. While residents with negative socio-economic impact perceptions werefound to strongly oppose mass tourism development (b = �.34; t = �5.56), theyindicated neither support nor opposition for alternative tourism development.On the other hand, residents with negative social impacts perceptions indicateda strong opposition for alternative tourism development (B = �12; t = �2.18)while neither support nor opposition was indicated for mass tourism develop-

Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715–734 725

ment. This finding maybe the result of a perception that travelers who participatein alternative tourism activities are likely to have more interaction with localsresulting in higher negative social impacts while mass tourist tend to minimizetheir contacts with locals. Alternative tourism developments are often locatedin and organized by communities, where it is hoped they will foster more mean-ingful interaction between tourists and local residents. However, if type and num-ber of these interactions are not managed well, they may result in social andcultural disruptions in that community. Even most socially conscious travelersare likely to have some negative social impacts on locals because they come fromother societies with different values and lifestyles. They tend to have more money,wear better clothes, carry expensive cameras, bags, etc. than locals and tend tobehave differently than locals. As the number of interactions among these tour-ists and locals, especially youngsters, increase, the level of negative social influ-ences is also likely to increase.

Findings of this study suggested that understanding local residents’ attitudes to-ward any form of tourism development requires an examination of a set of verycomplex and interrelated factors. While most of the residents were found to beconcerned about economic benefits, others were more concerned about specificsocial, cultural and/or environmental benefits and costs factors. However, findingsfurther suggested that while several factors influence attitudes, some of the ante-cedents of attitudes are correlated, especially the impact perceptions. Therefore,it is crucial for developers and policy makers to thoroughly understand the inter-play among impact perceptions because the most salient impact perception islikely to influence how the perception of other impact factors are formed.

Another finding, which is likely to have significant theoretical and practicalimplications, is the role perception of local economy plays in forming locals’ im-pact perceptions and their attitudes toward tourism. As indicated by the findings,the more local residents feel the economy needs improvement, the more likelythey are to support both forms of development and the less likely they are to betroubled by some of the costs associated with the development.

Findings clearly indicated that even in rapidly developing tourist destinations,each individual’s attitude toward development is likely to vary, which makes it al-most impossible to come up with a type of development that will receive everyone’sendorsement. However, finding suggested that most locals do not see tourismdevelopment as either good or bad. If they believe certain aspects of the develop-ment may have negative impacts or certain types of development may not beappropriate, they are not likely to support that development. However, they arelikely to support a development that is seen as appropriate and likely to minimizethose negative impacts. For example, while individuals who are concerned aboutthe state of the local economy and believe tourism can assist them economicallyare likely to support both form of tourism, others who believe tourism is likelyto generate cultural benefits are more likely to support alternative tourism.Residents with high eco-centric attitudes are likely to oppose any form of masstourism development because of the perceived negative impacts. However, theyare likely to support alternative tourism development, which may seem moreappropriate for locals with high eco-centric attitudes.

REFERENCES

Butler, R. W.1980 The Concept of a Tourism Area Cycle of Evolution: Implications for the

Management of Resources. Canadian Geographer 24:5–12.Gursoy, D., and D. G. Rutherford

2004 Host Attitudes Toward Tourism: An Improved Structural Model. Annals ofTourism Research 31:495–516.

726 Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715–734

Gursoy, D., C. Jurowski, and M. Uysal2002 Resident Attitudes: A Structural Modeling Approach. Annals of Tourism

Research 29:79–105.Yoon, Y., D. Gursoy, and J. S. Chen

2001 Validating a Tourism Development Theory with Structural Equation Modeling.Tourism Management 22:363–372.

Dogan Gursoy: School of Hospitality Business Management, Washington State Uni-versity, Pullman WA 99164-4742, USA. Email <dgursoy@wsu.edu>

Submitted 8 September 2008. Final Version 9 March 2009. Accepted 8 June 2009

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2009.06.003

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 726–730, 20090160-7383/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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TRANSACTIONAL VERSUSRELATIONAL PATRONIZING INTENTIONS

Chung-Hsien LinFeng-Chia University, Taiwan

Duarte B. MoraisThe Pennsylvania State University, USA

Increasing competition among Destination Marketing Organizations has led tointensified efforts to understand significant variables that influence tourists’ desti-nation choices. Several authors have called for a deeper examination of theoreticalconstructs predicting intentions to patronize a destination (Cai, Wu and Bai 2004;Gitelson and Crompton 1984). Further, some authors have noted that a generalmodels of tourists’ destination choices (Woodside and Lysonski 1989) have con-centrated on explaining how to attract first-time visitors but have overlooked thatmost destinations have substantial numbers of repeat visitors (Um, Chon and Ro2006). Accordingly, researchers have suggested that it would be of particularimportance to examine whether a general model is equally applicable to transac-tional and relational destination patronizing decisions (Dwyer, Schurr and Oh1987) and to the equivalent types of tourist (i.e., first-timers or repeaters) (Opper-mann 2000). Therefore, a conceptual model incorporating a relational (destina-tion attachment) and a transactional (destination image) antecedent topatronizing intentions was tested on both first time and repeat tourists to a Taiwan-ese destination.

Literature examining destination choice from a transactional prism has estab-lished that destination image is a predictor of tourists’ intentions to patronize adestination (Castro, Armario and Ruiz 2007). Destination image may be under-stood as the sum of beliefs, ideas, and impressions that individuals have ofattributes and/or activities available at a destination (Hunt 1975). It is suggestedthat destination image includes both cognitive and affective components (Balogluand McCleary 1999). In the seminal work done by Fakeye and Crompton (1991),destination image was seen as very important in determining intentions to visit a