Community Participation and Residents’ Support for Tourism Development in Ancient Villages: The Mediating Role of Perceptions of Conflicts in the Tourism Community

Mingsen Wang,Yi Guo,Songjun Xu,Jinbo Jiang

doi:10.3390/su13052455

Mingsen Wang, Yi Guo + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052455

Copy DOI

Abstract

As increasing numbers of tourists have begun to visit ancient villages, conflicts between tourism development and residents have become one of the main challenges to the sustainable development of the tourism community. This research explores the relationship between community participation and residents’ support for tourism development in an ancient village. This study surveyed 249 indigenous residents living in Whampoa Village, Guangzhou, China. The findings show that community participation in tourism development has a positive influence on residents’ support for tourism development, and this relationship is mediated by the perceptions of conflicts in the tourism community. This study contributes a new theoretical perspective and practical implications for the sustainable development of ancient villages.

Highlights

Tourism has become a way of life for the general public, with an increasing number of people taking part in tourism activities
Convergent validity is often assessed by way of two key coefficients [59]: the composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE)
This study reveals that community participation (CP) in tourism development positively affects residents’ support for tourism development (RSTD)

Summary

Introduction

Tourism has become a way of life for the general public, with an increasing number of people taking part in tourism activities. Previous studies have demonstrated that tourism has a positive impact on local communities’ economy, society, culture, and environment, such as improvement of infrastructure [1], enhancement of residents’ quality of life [2], and the protection and revival of culture [3]. A large number of studies have identified a range of negative impacts caused by tourism development. Being one of the most important groups of stakeholders in a tourism destination, residents are closely related to and can be deeply influenced by tourism impacts, regardless of whether the impacts are positive or negative [7]. In addition to the positive and negative impacts of tourism development on the tourism community, residents’ perceptions of those impacts can be salient factors affecting the sustainability of tourism development [8]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion