Rural tourism development: shifting basis of community solidarity

Community solidarity is considered a definitive quality of many rural towns and one that could be dramatically influenced by accommodating tourism development. Previous research indicates that tourism brings people from different cultural backgrounds into a community. In this exploratory study, evidence indicates that tourism development changes residents ’ relationships to one another and to their community. Five propositions are discussed concerning the impacts of rural tourism: community diversification, delineation of social boundaries, conformity to an ideal town image, shared image as a source of bond-ing, and a shifting basis of community solidarity. Tourism development can introduce a different world to rural communities and has the potential to dramatically influence rural life-styles (Pizam 1978; Long, Perdue, and Allen 1990). An emerging literature base has been associated with documenting and understanding the influence of tour-ism development on rural (or local) communities (e.g., Cooke 1982; Murphy 1981, 1983; Milman and Pizam 1988; Luloff et al. 1994). This article extends this literature base by explor-ing the impact of tourism development on personal ties and community solidarity. In rural areas, where personal rela-tionships are thought to be significantly closer than those in urban areas, understanding the influence of tourism devel-opment on solidarity has been suggested as an important direction for research (cf. Allen et al. 1988). Several studies have investigated various aspects of tourism development on rural community life; however, the influence of tourism on personal ties and community solidarity has not been a focus. In addition, the tourism-related social impact literature has a strong orientation to less-developed countries, and its applicability to rural areas in developed countries may have limitations. Thus, many of the studies reviewed here are from community studies and rural sociology, not from the tourism literature