Abstract
Local residents play an important role in the process of sustainable development in tourism. Resident support for tourism development contributes to the health of tourism industry and successful community development. Therefore, it is in the best interest of local residents, the tourism industry, and tourists, that residents have a positive outlook on and positive experiences with tourism development. In order to understand resident support for tourism development from tourism impacts and community quality of life perspective within the rural communities of Orange County, Indiana, USA, this study has examined a proposed structural model which incorporates eight latent variables: (a) six types of positive and negative tourism impacts serve as exogenous latent variables; (b) tourism-related community quality of life (TCQOL) is proposed as the mediating variable; and (c) resident support for tourism development is the ultimate dependent variable. The results show that both sociocultural and environmental benefits contribute to the host community’s living experience. Economic and sociocultural benefits, negative sociocultural and environmental impacts, and TCQOL influence resident support for tourism development. This study identified specific tourism impacts that affect TCQOL and resident support for local tourism development. This study affirms that community quality of life (QOL) serves an effective predictor of support for tourism development.
Highlights
Successful tourism development involves balancing relationships among tourists, residents, places, and the organizations and businesses that provide tourism services [1]
The current study comprehensively examined the effects of tourism impacts and tourism-related community quality of life (TCQOL) on support for tourism development
This research question highlights the influences of a particular tourism impact on community quality of life (QOL) and was examined through H1a, H1b, H1c, H1d, H1e, and H1f
Summary
Successful tourism development involves balancing relationships among tourists, residents, places, and the organizations and businesses that provide tourism services [1]. Tourism development exerts a myriad of effects that change the host community’s living experience. Local community participation and support for tourism is necessary for sustainable tourism development [2]. Residents of host communities are considered an integral part of the “tourism experience”. Murphy [3] suggested that goodwill and cooperation of the host community contribute to selling destination experiences and identified the need of community participation to tourism development and marketing. Tourism proponents consider tourism essential to the prosperity of local communities, through raising resident standard of living, which results in improving resident quality of life (QOL) [4]. The hospitality of local residents of a tourism destination affects the health of the tourism industry, and tourism destinations should be developed according to their needs [6]
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