Influence of tourism on attitudes

Turkish Visitors in Armenia: Any Changes in Attitudes and Perceptions?

“…Moreover, tourism is known to be effective in improving the quality of life in the weaker economies, preservation of the environmental and social-cultural structures, eliminating conflicts and cultural prejudices by developing positive attitudes between local people and tourists (Kelly, 2006). The contribution of tourism to international world peace has been questioned in several studies conducted between USA and Russia (Pizam et al, 1991), Turkey and Greece (Anastasopoulos, 1992), Israel and Jordan (Pizam et al, 2002) and Israel and Egypt (Milman et al, 1990) in terms of its effect of reducing conflict, tension, and prejudices between the countries that have had negative political relationships.…”

“…As for methodological aspect, previous studies were conducted on control and experimental groups before and after their travel, employed questionnaires for data collection and analyzed by quantitative techniques (Pearce, 1982;Amir and Ben Ari, 1985;Welds and Dukes, 1985 as cited in Pizam et al 1991;Pizam et al, 1991;Anastasopoulos, 1992). Not seeing any attitude change in the control group either before or after their travel means that travel is a significant factor in this regard (Pearce, 1982).…”

“…Concerning the findings, previous studies indicate that attitude change can be detected in different ways and levels. Attitude changes via tourism are affected by the attitudes prior to travel, and the deep beliefs regarding other cultures are not (Smith, 1977as cited in Pearce, 1982Grothe, 1970 as cited in Pizam et al 1991). In comparative studies, the attitudes of different cultures do not change equally, or in the same way (Triandis and Vassiliou, 1977 as cited in Pearce, 1982).…”

“…Generally, attitudes do not change; if there are any changes, these take place mostly in a negative way (Pizam et al 1991), and cultural items affect the satisfaction constructed by the travel experiences and thus, cause the attitudes to change by the end of travel (Jacinto et al 1999;Weiermair, 2000). In the literature, some studies that evaluate the sociological impacts of tourism through interaction between countries in conflict are also available.…”

“…In particular, the findings from some studies put forward the idea that political events and relationships between countries are the only effective factor in terms of attitude change. Some studies state that political relationships between countries and cultures, creating a positive opportunity for a relationship in societies, provides the opportunity to travel freely and ensure more positive pre-travel attitudes (Amir and Ben Ari, 1985;Pizam et al 1991;Yang, 2011). In the literature, the number of studies relating to post-travel attitude changes is scarce.…”