Property owners’ attitudes toward sustainable tourism: Comparing coastal and mountain counties

Abstract

This study explored factors influencing property owners’ attitudes toward tourism development in two very different counties in North Carolina: one coastal (n = 854) and one in the mountains (n = 619). Attitudes toward the impact of tourism and sustainable tourism development were compared for permanent and second-home residents and between the two counties. Findings include the fact that 22% of property owners in the coast and 12.8% of property owners in the mountains thought that the impact of tourism in their community was such that they wished they lived or owned property elsewhere. Permanent homeowners were more likely than second homeowners to have this opinion. Second homeowners in both counties perceived that they had little or no influence over tourism-related issues, a perception stronger in the coastal county than mountain.

Evolutionary Relationship between Tourism and Real Estate: Evidence and Research Trends

“…In this period, the term sustainability generally flourished, and the United Nations set the 2030 Agenda, which encompassed the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. This cluster includes research articles interested in applying sustainability to tourism real estate, such as [25,52,63,64].…”

“…For example, in coastal tourist areas, carbon emissions from different real estate products affect the tourism resources in the area, which in turn causes damage to these resources, and this constitutes an obstacle to achieving the principles of sustainability in the tourism sector. For this reason, many tourism buildings are seeking to obtain an LEED certificate (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in order to be classified as green buildings; this is one of the pillars of the green tourism destinations concept [24,25]. On the other hand, the various tourism development policies and strategies, in turn, affect the concept of sustainability in real estate.…”