How Residents' Attitudes to Tourists and Tourism Affect Their Pro-tourism Behaviours: The Moderating Role of Chinese Traditionality

Abstract

Although sufficient attention has been paid to residents' attitudes to tourism in previous studies, few studies have used residents' attitudes to tourists and tourism simultaneously to explain their support for tourism. This study fills this gap by examining the effect of place image and host–tourist interactions on residents' attitudes to tourists and tourism, respectively, and their consequent reactions by considering the moderating effect of Chinese traditionality. The proposed model is tested using data from 357 residents living in Huangshan, a fifth-tier city in China. Results demonstrate that attitudes to tourism and host-tourists interaction positively affect their pro-tourism behaviours. Moreover, attitudes to tourism mediate place the image's, host–tourists interaction's and attitudes to tourists' respective relationships with pro-tourism behaviours. Furthermore, the higher the Chinese traditionality of residents, the stronger the influence of their attitudes to tourism on pro-tourism behaviours. However, the relationship of place image and attitudes of residents towards tourists with pro-tourism behaviours are not supported. Findings offer critical implications for planners, practitioners and interested researchers.

Residents’ Support for Tourism Amidst the COVID-19 Era: An Application of Social Amplification of Risk Framework and Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Theory

“…Lastly, among the five significant predictors of residents’ support for tourism, residents’ attitudes to tourism have the strongest effect, followed by residents’ attitudes to tourists, which was in line with previous studies [ 10 , 74 , 75 ]. These findings further confirmed the significant and positive relationship between attitudes and behaviour.…”

“…Residents’ support for tourism (four items) was adapted from Joo, Xu, Lee, Lee and Woosnam [ 1 ]. A sample item states: “I believe Huangshan tourism should be actively promoted during the pandemic.” Residents’ attitudes to tourism (four items) and attitudes to tourists (four items) were adapted from Shen, Yang and Geng [ 10 ]. Sample items read as follows: “I believe tourism is a good activity for Huangshan” and “For me, the tourists who visit Huangshan is positive.” Residents’ risk perception of COVID-19 (four items) was adapted from Woosnam, Russell, Ribeiro, Denley, Rojas, Hadjidakis, Barr and Mower [ 7 ].…”

“…Given the prolonged incubation period and the asymptomatic nature of COVID-19, residents may have difficulty identifying and avoiding infectious tourists, which leads them to seclude themselves or accept risky tourists [ 1 ]. As an essential step to ensure a destination’s tourism sustainability, the role of residents’ support for tourism (SUPT) has been demonstrated in many studies [ 1 , 7 , 10 , 11 ]. In the face of the spread of COVID-19 and sporadic outbreaks in some areas, residents’ SUPT has become especially important but has also brought them risk.…”

“…Thus, grounded in the SARF and KAP theory, this study constructs an integrated theoretical model to examine residents’ SUPT. Furthermore, given that limited research has investigated residents’ attitudes to tourism (ATT) and attitudes to tourists (ATTT) simultaneously to understand their SUPT [ 10 ], this study divides residents’ attitudes into two types of categories (i.e., ATT and ATTT) based on differential objects and explains their respective impact on residents’ SUPT ( Figure 1 ).…”

Place Attachment, Host Tourists’ Interaction and Resident Welcoming Attitude: A Post Covid-19 Assessment Towards Tourism Recovery in Langkawi, Malaysia

“…ATTT research on residents' ATTT is critical since it focuses on the hostguest interaction . On the other hand, earlier research has mostly focused on the ATT of residents (Woosnam et al, 2018;Shen et al, 2021). According to Woosnam et al (2018), emotional solidarity is influenced by one's level of identification with another person.…”