Protected area influence over resident attitudes towards tourism in gateway communities

Abstract

While there has been extensive research on resident sentiment towards tourism, few have explored the uniqueness of gateway communities and their relationship to the Protected Areas (PA) surrounding them. This study explores how resident trust of PA managers and support for PAs surrounding their community can spillover to explain additional variance in resident support or opposition to tourism. To test this, traditional antecedents to resident support for tourism, like psychological, social, and political empowerment and the economic benefits from tourism, were modeled independently and in tandem with trust in PA managers and resident support for PAAs. Results from 405 residents of Transylvania County, NC, USA show trust of Pisgah National Forest managers (β = 0.137, p = 0.001) and resident support for the PA influence their support for tourism (β = 0.257, p = 0.001) and explain an additional six percentage points in why residents support tourism within their gateway communities when included in the model. These findings suggest that when evaluating gateway communities’ support for tourism, it is prudent to also include resident perspectives of PAs and how they are managed as resident perspectives of the PA and its management can spillover to their attitudes towards tourism.