Empowerment and its divergent influence over mass and alternative tourism

Abstract

AbstractResident attitude research often combines heterogenous types of tourism together asking residents to evaluate support for all types of tourism rather than parsing out the intricacies associated with different types of tourism. This study deviates by applying Weber's Theory of Formal and Substantive Rationality (WTFSR) to compare the divergent effects of both economic and non‐economic factors on residents' support for two forms of tourism development: mass and alternative tourism (gaming and cultural tourism in Macao in this case). Findings suggest economic benefits and psychological empowerment lead to support for both gaming and cultural tourism development with the effect of economic benefits more prominent over support for gaming tourism, and psychological empowerment more influential over support for cultural tourism. In addition, social empowerment is only significant in predicting support for gaming tourism while political empowerment predicts neither. Findings also suggest economic benefits appear to be an antecedent to psychological, social and political empowerment.