Factors of Stakeholder Understanding of Tourism: The Case of Eastern North Carolina

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a tool to better understand a community ' s knowledge of sustainable tourism principles. An assessment tool was developed to help identify factors of a community ' s knowledge of sustainable tourism. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to determine the latent structure of the set of variables. Five factors of a stakeholder ' s understanding of sustainable tourism development were identifi ed in this study. These factors were (1) natural resources, (2) planning, (3) economic concerns, (4) educational needs, and (5) awareness of tourism.

Determining the Sustainability Factors and Performance of a Tourism Destination from the Stakeholders’ Perspective

“…The destination's most important resources, according to Likewise, Byrd et al [43], are included in the same factor with the main competitive elements of the tourism supply chain. This factor shows the key target market of the destination because the weather and the beaches are the main competitive advantages.…”

“…The methodology applied is based on expert or stakeholder opinions, a widely developed research method in the academic literature on tourism [11,12,35,39,[42][43][44]. A survey with 55 respondents was administered to stakeholders related to the most strategic tourism areas, structured in the following way: 12 hotel managers, 11 managers of non-hotel accommodations, nine managers of complementary offers, six managers of service companies, seven politicians, six managers of tour operators and travel agencies, and four researchers who are experts in tourism-related issues.…”

“…In this line, the destination's marketing organization is now acknowledged as a mainstay of the future development and sustainability of the tourism destination and an important way to compete and attract visitors [13,40,41]. Moreover, due to the complexity and great difficulty of obtaining information about the different perspectives involved in the tourism destination, most studies have been based on the opinions of experts and stakeholders [11,12,35,39,[42][43][44].…”

“…Along these lines, [52] considers that the environmental management of a tourist destination should be a source of competitiveness. Likewise, Byrd et al [43] identified five factors of a stakeholder's understanding of sustainable tourism development: (1) natural resources; (2) planning; (3) economic concerns; (4) educational needs; and (5) awareness of tourism. In this context, the national tourism organization can play a decisive role in achieving sustainable tourism through strategic planning designed to improve performance [53].…”

Assumptions for a Successful Implementation of the Concept of Sustainable Tourism Development: Example of Urban Destinations of the Republic of Croatia

“…Međutim, problemi se također javljaju zbog nerazumijevanja samog koncepta održivog razvoja i nemogućnosti njegove implementacije (Hardy i Beeton, 2001;Ko, 2005;Choi i Sirakaya, 2006;Byrd et al, 2008;Koutsouris, 2009;Miller et al, 2010). Implementacija uvelike ovisi o obilježjima dionika, a osnovna pretpostavka upravljanja održivim razvojem turizma jest poznavanje načela održivog razvoja.…”