The relationship between perceptions towards a world heritage site and support for sustainable tourism development

Residents support for sustainable tourism development is crucial especially when it comes to area designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site. Literature suggests that lack of support causes expensive future conflicts, political objection, hinder development, sour tourists-host relationship and cultural heritage properties destruction.Resident reaction towards proposed tourism development also known to be influenced by the way they perceive its impacts. Thus, this paper aims to examine the effect of perceptions towards a World Heritage Site on support for sustainable tourism development using Lenggong Valley as a case study.The outcomes of factor analysis suggest that perception towards World Heritage Site is two dimensional, which can be identified as perceived benefits and perceived costs.Regression analysis results indicated a positive relationship between perceived benefits and support for sustainable tourism development, and a negative relationship between perceived costs and support for sustainable tourism development. It is clear that the residents‘ perceived impacts influence the level of their support or objection towards tourism development