A Case Study on the Impact of Personal Characteristics on Residents’ Support for Tourism Development

A Case Study on the Impact of Personal Characteristics on Residents’ Support for Tourism Development Abstract This research assessed resident attitudes towards tourism including those areas that residents believe impact their quality of life. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to find how personal characteristics (distance from tourism zone, length of residency, and employment in the tourism sector) influence residents’ attitudes towards supporting tourism and the need for broader regulations to manage the sector’s impact on residents’ quality of life. Framed in social exchange theory and based on the works, this research proposes a serious of hypotheses and a structural equation model which examines the relationships among personal characteristics, the perceived positive/negative impact, and subsequent support for tourism development. Data were collected from a stratified random sample of residents of Charleston, SC in April 2014. AMOS program was utilized to test the conceptual model. Results reveal the existence of an indirect relationship between living distance to tourism district and residents’ attitude to tourism development, which is mediated by residents’ perception on the impact of tourism