Residents’ support toward tourism and socio-economic crisis by covid19 -The case of young residents in Okinawa island, Japan

Abstract

The understanding of residents’ perceptions for tourism development has been an important theme among managers for destinations because the success and sustainability of destination depends upon the benevolence of local residents. Along with this tourism features vulnerability, and peripherality, especially against the disasters and crises. Covid-19 have forced the global tourism-related businesses to shut down and the public is facing on high alert, many businesses and communities are paralysed due to this pandemic. Many residents understand that tourism recovery can boost the local economy. Meanwhile, if tourist destinations promote tourism against the will of the residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, the residents will reject the strategy and their attitude toward tourism will worsen. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between residents’ support intention for tourism (STI) and each variable among young residents in Okinawa, Japan. Firstly, we discuss the concept of residents’ support for tourism. Secondly, the study developed the proposed model, based on ‘social exchange theory’, to measure the relationship among STI, resident attitude (ATT), perceived economic impact (ECI) / socio-cultural impact (SCI) / environmental impact (ENI) toward tourism development, and trust for tourism policy and related institution (TTP). Furthermore, this research tries to test these influences through a comparison about intensity of concern for local economy and society due to COVID-19 epidemic. Finding suggest that there is direct and positive relation between the variables of support intention and trust in tourism policy and related institutions, attitude is the variable that most influenced the formation of support intention, the result of the relationship between economic impact and attitude vary across groups .The study contributes to tourism theory by empirically examining the role of trust in tourism policy ,related institutions and residents’ perceptions regarding tourism impacts as antecedent of support intention.