The Impact of Residents’ Participation on Their Support for Tourism Development at a Community Level Destination

Abstract

Resident participation is crucial to the success of tourism development at community-level destinations. This study examines the effect of residents’ participation on their support for tourism development at the community level through a case study of Gamcheon Culture Village, South Korea. Using the structural equation model (SEM), including the variables of participation of tourism development, community attachment, economic dependence, perceived positive impacts, perceived negative impacts, and attitude toward tourism development, this study found that participation in tourism development significantly influences residents’ attitude toward development. Residents’ participation not only directly affects their attitude toward tourism development, but also indirectly influences it by increasing their positive perception of tourism development. Results empirically reveal that resident participation is critical to tourism development, especially for destinations at the local level.

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Residents’ Support for Sustainable Tourism Development

“…Additionally, the final dataset of 344 is consistent with practices from prior studies; for instance, Kim et al [11] examined 189 residents; Moghavvemi et al [45] investigated a sample of 333 residents; Wang et al [57] validated their model based on 294 respondents; Yu et al [13] based their model on 322 respondents; Jeon et al [52] evaluated the proposed model based on a sample of 347 respondents; Chen and Chen [50] examined 239 respondents; Huong and Lee [39] analyzed 267 responses; Zhang et al [40] considered a sample of 297 respondents.…”

“…Local communities may withdraw their support for sustainable tourism development if they understand that the expenses of tourism may exceed the benefits [57]. Previous studies [1,4,8,11,13,17,42,47] confirmed the interrelationships between residents' perceived benefits and costs of tourism and their support for sustainable tourism activities. Thus, the more positively and favorably the benefits of tourism were viewed by the local people, the greater their support for tourism development; conversely, the less favorable the impacts of tourism, the less supportive the host population were in terms of enhancing tourism in a particular area.…”

“…On the other hand, Gursoy and Rutherford [21], Chen and Chen [50], and Kim et al [11] discovered that community attachment had no effect on the perceived costs of tourism, even though all studies presented a negative association between these two concepts.…”

“…Certain authors examined tourism impacts under one single latent construct and assumed a positive connection between community attachment and residents' overall appreciation of tourism influences [17,38,49]. However, most authors distinguished between 'positive tourism impacts' (or perceived benefits associated with tourism) and 'negative tourism impacts' (or perceived costs associated with tourism) [1,4,11,21,43,50].…”

“…Many authors have focused their research on different study areas on comprehending the premises of support for sustainable tourism development at a local level. For instance, Kim et al [11] explored the region of Gamcheon Culture Village, South Korea in their residents' study; Bajrami et al [8] based their study on 'residents living in rural areas of the Republic of Serbia'; Yu et al [12,13] explored tourism development in rural midwestern communities from USA; Moraru et al [14] investigated residents' attitude toward tourism in Constanta, Romania; Akis et al [15] examined the case of Cyprus; Andriotis and Vaughan [16] focused their study in Crete, Greece; Stylidis [17] explored the perceptions of residents from Kavala, Greece in relation to place attachment and tourism support; Liang and Hui [18] selected the Shenzhen OCT community of China as the location for their residents' study; Zhuang et al [19] based their study in India, more specifically in two cities associated with pilgrimage tourism (Puri and Varanasi); whereas Gannon et al [20] explored perceptions of residents from Tabriz and Kashan (Iran). Considering the findings of these studies, the viability of tourism is contingent on the proactive participation and support of locals [21], without which the survival of the tourism industry in that particular area is imperiled [4].…”