The Relationship between Residents’ Individual Characteristics and Their Preferences for Involvement in Tourism Development

This study investigated whether residents have different preferences for their involvement in local tourism development, and whether residents’ preferences were influenced by their individual characteristics. A mail survey method was adopted and involved a sample of residents from 11 counties in the state of Indiana, United States. Factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis were conducted to group residents by their preferences; cross-tabulation and MANOVA analysis were used to detect the differences in individual characteristics between groups; then multivariate standard regression was conducted to discover if individual characteristics could explain the differences in preferences. This research contributes by suggesting that governments design tourism policies that meet the different involvement demands existing in a host community