Rural Residents' Attitudes Toward Recreation and Tourism Development

Abstract

This study investigates residents' attitudes toward recreation and tourism development in 10 rural Colorado towns. Two-per capita ratios based on tourism retail sales and total retail sales were developed and the communities were grouped into high and low tourism and high and low economic categories. These two ratios as grouping variables and length of residence as a covariate formed the basis for 2 x 2 ANCOVA conducted to determine any significant differences for eight recreation attitudes and 18 tourism development attitude statements. Generally, it was found that residents' attitudes towards tourism development in communities with both high economic and tourism development and low economic and tourism development were more positive than those residents of the low/high or high/low economic and tourism development communities. Further, recreation attitudes were affected by level of economic activity but not level of tourism development. Additionally, length of residence was found to have no significant effect on the residents' attitudes towards tourism development.

Creating a scale for assessing socially sustainable tourism

“…The model was extended by Latkova and Vogt (2012), who applied the theories of Social Exchange Theory and Tourism Area Life Cycle. Perceived impacts on prices, crime, quality of life, government control, and traffic issues were discussed as they apply in the case of higher or lower tourist volumes and in areas characterized by higher or lower incomes (Allen et al, 1993). The Tourism Impact Attitude Scale (TIAS) was originally designed to standardize the measurement of resident attitudes towards tourism development (Lankford & Howard, 1994).…”

Collaboration theory and community tourism planning

“…A public good, by its very nature, is a candidate for government activity, since "the benefits from a public or social good, unlike those from a purely private good, are seen to involve external consumption effects on more than one individual" (Samuelson and Scott 1975:144). Hence, destination residents may be less willing to support additional tourism development through local revenue tax funds (Long, Perdue and Allen 1990) and could favor government control over development (Allen, Hafer, Long and Perdue 1993). The local authorities have the delicate task of juggling private sector interests with local resident needs and wants, in order to maintain the economic health of the community and ensure that development is sustainable.…”

“…For example, several studies have shown that people who benefit from tourism perceive greater economic but lesser social or environmental impact from tourism than those who do not (Lankford and Howard 1994;Milman and Pizam 1988;Pizam 1978;Prentice 1993). Some studies on rural communities have demonstrated predominantly positive perceptions of tourism development's impact on the local economy (Allen et al 1993). However, research by Long et al (1990) on 28 rural Colorado communities indicated that residents' favor of tourism development increased initially, but became less favorable after a threshold level of development was reached.…”

Engaging with a healthy tourism “offer”: strategies to improve place perceptions

“…The exploration of social dimensions, a more recent research focus, predominantly employs the social exchange theory to investigate the topic (Gursoy and Rutherford 2004). The social exchange theory is guided by the principle that more people are likely to participate in a social exchange when they perceive that they will accrue benefits without any unacceptable costs (Allen et al 1993). Participants revealed a wide range of perceptions held about the town ranging from it being one of the happiest places to it being full of out of control teenagers.…”