Urban vs. rural destinations: residents’ perceptions, community participation and support for tourism development

Journal
Tourism management  
Volume
60
Start Page
147
End Page
158
Citation
Tourism Management (60): 147-158 (2017-06-01)
Publisher DOI
10.1016/j.tourman.2016.11.019
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84999751271
Publisher
Elsevier Science
This paper investigates and compares the effects of residents' perceptions of the impacts of tourism on community participation and support for tourism development across urban and rural world heritage sites (WHSs). Partial least squares – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), has been employed to perform the analysis. The results reveal significant differences between the effects of residents' perceptions and community participation on support for tourism development in urban and rural destinations. However, the findings did not support any differences between the effects of positive perceptions on community participation, and the indirect effects of negative perceptions on support for tourism development. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution to the urban and rural tourism and residents’ perceptions literature by comparing rural and urban WHSs residents. Furthermore, this study has a number of practical implications for the local authorities of rural and urban WHSs.
Subjects
Community participation
Residents' perceptions
Rural destination
Support for tourism development
Urban destination
World heritage site (WHS)
DDC Class
330: Wirtschaft
More Funding Information
The authors would like to extend their appreciation to the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for the research grant entitled (Heritage Awareness and Interpretation) [Grant No 1001/PTS/8660012] that makes this paper possible.