Abstract
Few empirical studies on the effect of tourism impacts on residents’ support for tourism development have linked an environmental justice perspective with sustainable tourism. This study aims to explore spatial distributive differences in residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts to understand their support for sustainable tourism development. A total of 1057 residents of the Lu-Kang destination in Taiwan were surveyed using an on-site questionnaire. Employing the kernel density method and the local K function for spatial point analysis, the results indicated that spatial clustering of residents’ perceptions of both positive and negative tourism impacts occurred in the specific locations. Further, high household income, high education, and more personal benefits from tourism promoted the formation of localized spatial clusters where residents had positive perceptions of tourism impacts which, in turn, led to a high level of support for tourism development. Conversely, low income, low education, and less personal benefits from tourism cultivated the development of spatial clusters with negative perceptions of tourism impacts which, in turn, caused a low level of support for tourism development. The implications for sustainable tourism planning and strategies are discussed.
Highlights
Several studies have substantially contributed to understanding how the impact of tourism affects the perceptions and attitudes of residents regarding their support for tourism development [1,2,3,4,5,6].Perdue et al (1990), for example, suggested that if residents gained benefits from tourism, which contributes to income and boosts the livelihood of individuals, it would influence their support for a destination’s development [4]
The results suggest that (a) the positive and negative perceptions of tourism impacts tended to be concentrated across the study area and seemed to occur in the specific locations, namely, the major tourism sites; (b) high income, high education, and more personal benefits from tourism promoted localized clusters of positive perceptions of tourism impacts and, low income, low education, and less personal benefits from tourism cultivated spatial clusters of negative perceptions of tourism impacts; and (c) residents in local clusters of positive perceived tourism impacts had high levels of support for tourism development while residents in local clusters of negative perceived impacts had low levels of support for tourism development
The proposed framework provided a comprehensive understanding of the spatial equity of positive and negative tourism impacts as perceived byadvantaged local groups who evaluated tourism in their community based on the costs and benefits of that tourism
Summary
Several studies have substantially contributed to understanding how the impact of tourism affects the perceptions and attitudes of residents regarding their support for tourism development [1,2,3,4,5,6].Perdue et al (1990), for example, suggested that if residents gained benefits from tourism, which contributes to income and boosts the livelihood of individuals, it would influence their support for a destination’s development [4]. Support for tourism development in a destination varied according to their attitudes regarding the positive and negative impacts of that destination [7]. These and other works advise that perceived tourism impacts have become important for the sustainable tourism development of a destination [8]. This body of literature, has not considered environmental justice in its efforts to understand residents’ support for sustainable tourism development. More recent work in this area has argued that sustainable tourism development should be linked to social or environmental justice, which includes (distributive) equity, fairness, and justice for disadvantaged local residents [2,9,10], to ensure the effective management of resources for the benefit of future generations
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