旅游业的显著转变

旅游业的显著转变
The Remarkable Transformation Of Tourism 

 

近年来，旅游业的重要性日益增加，许多学者和政策制定者都将旅游业作为经济增长的引擎。 许多国家，特别是小岛屿发展中国家（SIDS），旅游业已经成为经济活动的主要部门，或者至少是主要的外汇收入来源，在大多数国家，也是就业的一个重要部门。 反映出巴特勒所谓的“鲁宾逊漂流记因素”,热带岛屿已经被晋升为西方消费者的节日愿望的表达,充了浪漫和冒险的内涵,就像国王指出的那样,这是历史性的“人间天堂”。

 

卓越的旅游业转型为世界上最大的产业，约占全球GDP的十分之一，就业和资本形成——恰逢小岛经济的转型，从糖和椰肉干等传统出口转向大众旅游和相关建设。 结果改变了狭隘的景观，在加勒比地区,地中海和北太平洋和创建了所谓的“快乐周边”的北美国，欧洲和日本。 很多研究都把注意力集中在旅游部门对纠正国际收支平衡的积极影响。事实证明，外汇的创造,增加了税收收入,否则多元化出口和扩大就业机会会变得有限,这就很容易看出为什么对于许多小岛屿发展中国家(SIDS)来说，发展旅游业是一个有吸引力的选择。

 

不过,这种增长过于迅速,无计划地侵入和损害了岛生态系统。 小岛屿发展中国家(SIDS)(包括低洼的沿海国家)面临可持续发展的挑战,包括人口不多,缺乏资源,地处偏远,易受自然灾害、过度依赖国际贸易和全球发展脆弱性。 

In recent years, the increasing importance of tourism has led many scholars and policy-makers to explore tourism as an engine of growth. For many nations, in particular small island developing states (SIDS), tourism has become the main sector of economic activity, or at least the main source of foreign exchange earnings, and in most countries, it is also an important sector for employment (United Nations, 2001). Reflecting what Butler (1993: 71) refers to as the 'Robinson Crusoe factor', tropical islands have been promoted as the expression of the holiday aspirations of Western consumers, being full of romantic and adventurous connotations, and as King (1997: 145) notes, having a 'long historic pedigree of the "earthly paradise".

 

The remarkable transformation of tourism into the world's largest industry-accounting for roughly a tenth of global GDP, employment and capital formation (WTTC, 2001)-has coincided with the restructuring of small island economies away from traditional exports like sugar and copra toward mass tourism and related construction. The results have transformed insular landscapes across the Caribbean, Mediterranean and North Pacific and created the so-called "Pleasure Periphery" of North America, Europe and Japan respectively (Turner and Ash, 1976). Many studies have focused their attention on the tourism sector's positive impact on redressing the balance of payments (Balaguer & Cantavella, 2002; Hazari & Sgro, 1995, (pp. 253-256)). With a proven ability to generate foreign exchange, boost tax revenues, diversify exports and expand the otherwise limited employment opportunities, it is easy to see why tourism is an attractive development option for many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (Briguglio et al. 1996; Guthanz & von Krosigk,1996; Milne, 1992; Wilkinson 1989).#p#分页标题#e#

 

Nevertheless, much of this growth has been overly rapid, unplanned and intrusive and has damaged insular eco-systems (Briguglio et al., 1996). Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (including low-lying coastal countries) share similar sustainable development challenges, including small population, lack of resources, remoteness, susceptibility to natural disasters, excessive dependence on international trade and vulnerability to global developments (Briguglio, 1993, 1995; Crowards, 2002; Liou & Ding, 2004). 

 

Cross and Nutley (1999) further note that SIDS suffer from lack of economies of scale, high transportation and communication costs, and costly public administration and infrastructure. Britton (1982, 1987) also explains how tourism in small islands is often characterised by substantial economic leakages as they are highly dependent on imported goods and the tendency of the industry to employ foreign labour, especially in senior positions. Having limited availability of human, institutional and financial resources to manage and use natural resources on a sustainable basis, there is also increasing demographic and economic pressures on existing natural resources and ecosystems of small islands states (Armstrong & Reed, 2002). Furthermore, Laws and al. (1998) argue that destinations face the challenge of identifying the unique factors which result into change in the local context, bearing in mind that policies developed for one destination should not be considered as applicable and adapted to other places.

 

Now, with tourism expansion, more environmental problems are being caused. For example, In the Caribbean, tourism growth has directly or indirectly caused deforestation and erosion of upland forests for condominium developments and road works, as well as beach loss, lagoon pollution and reef damage from sand mining, dredging and boat anchoring (McElroy and de Albuquerque, 1998). Nearly 30 percent of the reefs are at high risk because of runoff and discharges of untreated municipal and hotel waste and pollution from pleasure yachts and cruise ships (Bryant et al., 1998). On a small island there are limited resources, economic and social activities tend to be concentrated on the coastal zone, and the interconnectivity between economic, environmental, social, cultural and political spheres is strong and pervasive. Other scholars, namely Farrell (1986) and Poon (1993), point to the impact of tourism on vulnerable island ecosystems and illustrate how increased tourism can put pressure on limited resources such as fresh water and land, especially in coastal zones. Consequently the sustainable development of tourism is more a practical necessity than an optional extra.

 

研究目标-Objectives of study

 

An important component of sustainable tourism is residents' attitude to tourism development, but in spite of its known contribution, small islands still lag behind in analyzing their residents' attitudes toward the industry as a component of sustainability (Nunkoo and Ramkisoon, 2009). Resident attitudes towards tourism is an extensive field of research with studies conducted across the globe including Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa (see, for example, Avcikurt & Soybali, 2001; Gursoy et al., 2002; Infield & Namara, 2001; Iroegbu & Chen, 2001; Lindberg et al., 2001; McGehee & Andereck, 2004; Walpole & Goodwin, 2001). This study adds to this tradition by focusing specifically on attitudes towards small and medium hotels development. This development is a salient question in the tourism field, since small and medium hotels' owners interact in the local communities in different ways, and poses challenges about managing seasonality, sociocultural interaction, business opportunities and land use (Battilani & Fauri, 2009).#p#分页标题#e#

 

The existing literature indicates that small businesses have, in general, a major contribution to the economic well-being of a region through employment and wealth generation (Page et al., 1999: 439). In 2000, it was estimated that travel and tourism generated 203 million jobs - over 8% of all jobs world-wide, rising to over 207 million in 2001 (The World Travel & Tourism Council, 2000).It is estimated that within a decade, it will increase to over 260 million jobs or 9% of all employment. These jobs employ a significant proportion of women, minorities and young people and are predominantly in small and medium-sized enterprises. They make up the majority of the travel and tourism sector, although the exact percentage is unknown. Tourism stimulates local entrepreneurs in the community to supply tourist establishments. Telfer (2002) further argues that local entrepreneurs can help to strengthen backward economic linkages. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that the main objective of (small) entrepreneurs is not the well-being of society but "their own personal prosperity, defined in terms of wealth, power and prestige" (Upadhya and Rutten, 1997: 31).

 

While residents generally welcome economic development opportunities from tourism, they become anxious of potential negative impacts on the community, and degradation of their surrounding natural environments. It is thus imperative that any tourism development that is planned or proposed in the community has the endorsement of or acceptance by the majority of local residents (Long et al. 1990). A crucial question that the study raises is whether the community in Grand-Bay can control the pace of the small and medium hotels development, and it is a reason enough to suggest that a strong relationship should be built between the hotel investors, the village administrators, and local residents. There should be a clear understanding on issues, such as how local labour and resources utilized during the construction and operation phases of the hotels, how sound environmental practices are incorporated by the resort developers, and what level of support should be expected from the hotel developers for community affairs. The aim of this work is to examine potential associations between the local inhabitants' general environmental attitudes (ecocentrism) and economic dependency and their attitudes towards the small and medium hotels development in Grand-Bay. Against this background, this work is to examine potential associations between the local inhabitants' general environmental attitudes (ecocentrism) and economic dependency and their attitudes towards the small and medium hotels development in Grand-Bay.

 

dissertation结构-Structure of theses

 

For the interpretation of the results there are two theoretical backdrops, namely Social exchange theory (SET) (Ap, 1990) and the New Ecological Paradigm Scale (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978). Social exchange theory (SET), taken from other studies of tourism impacts (e.g. Ap, 1992; Jurowski et al., 1997), implies that individuals participate in exchanges if the exchanges produce valued benefits, and if the costs do not exceed the benefits. In the context of the tourism sector, the social exchange theory would imply that residents who benefit from tourism are likely to perceive the industry as positive and they will support it whereas, those residents who perceive themselves as incurring costs resulting from tourism development, would have negative attitudes towards tourism and oppose to any development in this sector. Exchanges are often classified as economic, social/cultural and environmental. In most studies of residents' attitudes towards tourism, variables reflecting each of these categories have been included. It is important to mention that the importance of a variable or a category of variables varies considerably across types of sites studied. For example, studies of Antartica (Enzenbacher, 1993), Australian tourist magnet like Sydney (Carmichael, 2000) or Mediterranean tourist sites (Kuvan and Akan, 2004) should not be expected to result in the identification of the same group of attitudes predictors.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Dunlap and Van Liere's New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale, published in 1978, has become a widely used measure of proenvironmental orientation. The measurement of environmental attitudes is considered important because attitudes may predict responsible environmental actions (Stern & Oskamp, 1987). The revised NEP Scale appears to be an improved measuring instrument compared to the original scale, as it (1) provides more comprehensive coverage of key facets of an ecological worldview, (2) avoids the unfortunate lack of balance in item direction of the original scale (where only four items, all dealing with anthropocentrism, were stated in an anti-NEP direction), and (3) removes the outmoded, sexist terminology in some of the original scale's items.

 

文献综述-Literature review

 

SIDS中小型酒店发展-Small and medium hotels development in SIDS

 

Go (1997) states that the tourism industry in most countries is comprised of small-scale enterprises. Small entrepreneurship is an essential characteristic of tourism across the world, including the developing countries. According to the literature, one of the underlying practices in furthering sustainable tourism is the use of small-scale locally owned businesses (Brohman 1996, Dahles 1997, Timothy, 2002). It is believed that the use of this type of services results in a much higher degree of local participation than traditional mass tourism and more inoffensive than large-scale developments because they place less stress on cultural and natural environments and have more direct economic benefits for local communities. According to Dahles (1999), there is an increasing interest in micro businesses and small entrepreneurs operating in the tourism industry in developing countries. This is related to investigations into the potential of tourism for sustainable developments. She substantiates this statement by referring to Brohman (1996: 64): "new forms of tourism are required that consist of smaller-scale, dispersed, and low density tourism developments located in and organised by communities, where it is hoped they will foster more meaningful interaction between tourists and local residents. These forms of tourism depend on ownership patterns that are in favour of local, often family-owned, relatively small-scale businesses rather than foreign-owned transnationals and other outside capital".

 

Dahles (1999) has indicated that, remarkably, the literature is uninformative about the role and position of small and medium-sized businesses in the tourism industry. The plea for more research on small-scale entrepreneurship in tourism seems to be heard as more recent studies have begun to recognise the importance of local entrepreneurial activity (e.g. Dahles et al. 1999, and Williams et al. 1998). Besides, there is an increasing interest in micro businesses and small entrepreneurs operation in the tourism industry in developing countries. This new interest is related to investigations into the potential of tourism for sustainable development. As Brohman suggests (1994), elements of a development strategy that meets developing countries' needs include among others a stress on small-scale, locally owned developments. Caalders (2003) also refers to the contribution of small-scale enterprises to sustainable development. What can be read between the lines of Dahles is made explicit in this report: the contribution of small entrepreneurs to sustainable development is mainly of social and economical nature; in the sense of the natural environment, their contribution to sustainability is less obvious. This is because, by nature, small entrepreneurs are an 'organic' part of their social and economic environment. Often there are many local linkages and small entrepreneurs are well embedded in the region. At the same time formal measures for the protection of the environment are often absent. In this respect, this study has theoretical relevance.#p#分页标题#e#

 

居民对旅游的态度-Residents' attitudes to tourism

For the purpose of this study, the SET and NEP scale have been considered as being more relevant and thus, they deserve an explication. Numerous theories such as the dependency theory (Preister, 1989), Butler's (1980) tourist area life cycle, Doxeys (1975) Irridex model, attribution theory (Peaerce, 1989) and the social sexchange theory (SET) (Ap, 1992) have been used in an attempt to give a theoretical base to the study of host perceptions toward tourism. Lepp (2007) argues that the attitude of the local community is one of the indicators of tourism appropriateness. Among all these theories, it is SET that have received the greatest attention by scholars who have attempted to study local people attitudes towards tourism and consequent support for the industry ( Sirakawa, Teye & Sonmez, 2002, Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004). Being described as "a general sociological theory concerned with understanding the exchange resources between individuals and groups in interaction situation" ( Ap, 1992, p668), SET has emerged as the most widely accepted one in explaining perceptions and attitude towards the industry (Perez & Nadal, 2005).

 

Social exchange theory (SET) is, however, not free from limitations. It has been criticized by several researchers and its limitations have been well recognized (Pearce, Moscardo and Ross, 1996). As per the SET, the individual is a rational decision maker and that humans process information in a systematic way, whereas psychological research suggest that in some cases humans are more likely to be cognitive "misers" (Fredline and Faulkner, 2000; Pearce et al., 1996). The latter depicts a mental characteristic where only small amount information is actively perceived by individuals, with many cognitive shortcuts. This means that humans use simple mental shortcuts that provide rapid but inaccurate solutions, rather than effortful mental processing, which provide delayed but accurate solutions. Furthermore, it has been noted that much of a person's individual knowledge is derived socially rather than from direct experience as postulated by SET (Fredline and Faulkner, 2000). Literature on community responses to tourism focuses on understanding and measuring resident attitudes. Eagly and Chaiken (1993: 1) considered attitude as a 'psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degrees of favor or disfavor'. Empirical studies suggest that significant variations in community attitudes and responses to tourism development exist and are influenced by a multitude of variables (Lankford and Howard, 1994).

 

Economic dependency on tourism emerges as one important predictor of positive attitudes towards tourism (Snaith & Haley, 1999; Korca, 1998; Pizam, 1978;). One of the few consistent findings in the area of resident perception of tourism is that people who derive financial benefit from the industry tend to hold a more positive opinion of it (Liu and Var 1986; Madrigal 1993; Lankford 1994). However, more recently Williams and Lawson (2001) found this not to be the case, and argued that people who derive financial benefit from tourism may be more enthusiastic about it, but that does not mean that they are unaware of the negative effects. It is important to take into account that tourism may be economically beneficial for the region or locality, yet that alone does not make tourism sustainable when viewed from a holistic sociocultural perspective (Mowforth & Munt, 2003).Economic profits do not guarantee fair allocation of benefits and costs, as local residents have multiple positions (Southgate, 2006), and the benefits of tourism are also related to other factors, for instance the wider concept of wellbeing (Jamal, Borges, & Stronza, 2006). An effect of demography has also been found in some studies (e.g. age: Haralambpoulas & Pizam, 1996; Weaver and Lawton, 2004; education: Korca, 1998; Teye et al., 2002; gender: Mason & Cheyne, 2000; Pizam, 1978). In general, however, demographic variables do not consistently relate to attitudes towards tourism (see review in McGehee & Andereck, 2004).#p#分页标题#e#

 

Several scholars have explored the link between community attachment and residents attitudes toward tourism (Um and Crompton 1987; Gursoy et al. 2002). In the tourism literature, the term 'community attachment' has been measured mostly in terms of the length of residency, growing up in the community or local sentiment (Brougham and Butler 1981; Um and Crompton 1987; Lankford and Howard 1994; Jurowski et al. 1997; Weaver and Lawton 2001; Clark and Stein 2003). Community attachment and length of residence have been found to be correlated, which is one of the reasons why length of residence has often been used alone as a measure of community attachment.

 

However, some researchers suggest that length of residency, by itself, is not a good measure of attachment (Mason and Cheyne 2000), as some residents can become attached to the community in a very short period of time (McCool and Martin 1994). It is important to consider the fact that the direction of influence (negative or positive) of variables which affect the community attachment varies from study to another (Kyle et al. 2005).Generally, community attachment and support for tourism has been reported to be negatively correlated. Those in support of tourism development tend to be newer arrivals that are more likely to work within tourism or had frequent contact with tourists (Weaver and Lawton 2001).

 

Previous research has also examined the relationship between community satisfaction and tourism attitudes (Ko and Stewart 2002). For example, Getz (1994) found that residents tend to be negative when the local economy is depressed and the tourism industry performs poorly. Community concerns about tourism's negative impacts also influence resident attitudes. Butler (1980) suggested that tourism destinations typically go through the stages of exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation or rejuvenation. Host reactions to tourism vary, depending on each stage of tourism development; reactions are more favourable during the initial than later stages (Butler 1980), thus assuming 'community' to be a homogeneous group, and the development cycle and community reactions as linear phenomena. Still, some studies have challenged these assumptions, indicating that attitudes are multidimensional and non-linear (Gursoy et al. 2002), that site-specific conditions are important factors in shaping resident attitudes (Tosun 2002) and that resident attitudes in a community tend to be mixed (Weaver and Lawton 2001; Lason and Cheyne 2000).

 

The NEP Scale has become the far more widely used measure of an environmental or, as now seems the more appropriate label, "ecological" worldview. Also, because the emergence of global environmental change has made items like "The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset" more relevant now than in the 1970s, and because alternative measures of environmental concern widely used in the 1970s and early 1980s focusing on specific types of environmental problems have become dated (e.g., Weigel & Weigel, 1978), the NEP Scale has also become a popular measure of environmental concern, with endorsement of the NEP treated as reflecting a proenvironmental orientation. The fact that the NEP Scale is treated as a measure of endorsement of a fundamental paradigm or worldview, as well as of environmental attitudes, beliefs, and even values, reflects the ambiguity inherent in measuring these phenomena as well as Dunlap and Van Liere's failure to ground the NEP in social-psychological theories of attitude structure (Stern, Dietz, & Guagnano, 1995). The NEP beliefs were found to be, by some political scientists, a core element in comprehensive environmental belief systems (Dalton, Gontmacher, Lovrich, & Pierce, 1999; Pierce, Lovrich, Tsurutani, & Takematsu, 1987). A consensus that the NEP items measure such beliefs (Edgell & Nowell, 1989; Gooch, 1995) is emerging, and Dalton et al. (1999) argue that it seems reasonable to regard a coherent set of these beliefs as constituting a paradigm or worldview that influences attitudes and beliefs toward more specific environmental issues.#p#分页标题#e#

 

The NEP Scale has been widely used during the past 2 decades, treated variously as measuring environmental attitudes, beliefs, and values. It has been used most often with samples of the general public, but it has also been used with samples of specific sectors such as members of interest groups (e.g., Edgell & Nowell, 1989; Pierce et al., 1992) and as farmers (Albrecht, Bultena, Hoiberg, & Nowak, 1982). It has also been used to examine the environmental orientations of ethnic minorities in the United States (e.g., Caron, 1989; Noe & Snow, 1989-90) as well as of residents of other nations such Japan (Pierce et al., 1987), the Baltic states (Gooch, 1995), Turkey (Furman, 1998), Canada (Edgell&Nowell, 1989) and as Sweden (Widegren, 1998). Other scholars have make use of NEP scale to compare the environmental orientations of college students in several Latin American nations and Spain with those of American students (Bechtel, Verdugo, & Pinheiro, 1999; Schultz & Zelezny, 1998).

 

Judging the content validity of the NEP Scale is more difficult, especially since the construct of an environmental/ecological paradigm or worldview is inherently somewhat amorphous. A recent study by Kempton, Boster, and Hartley (1995), however, that employed in-depth, ethnographic interviews in an effort to flesh out the environmental perspectives of Americans is highly relevant in this regard. Although their methods were dramatically different than those employed in the development and construction of the NEP Scale, on the basis of responses to their unstructured interviews Kempton et al. (1995, chap. 3) concluded that three general sets of environmental beliefs play crucial roles in the "cultural models" by which Americans attempt to make sense of environmental and complex, and therefore susceptible to human interference; and (3) Materialism and lack of contact with nature have led our society to devalue nature. That Kempton et al. found three nearly identical beliefs to those forming the major facets of the NEP Scale-balance of nature, limits to growth, and human domination over nature-is strong confirmation of the scale's content validity.

 

Original claims of the NEP Scale's construct validity (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978, p. 16) were limited to the fact that scores on it were related in the expected fashion with personal characteristics such as age (younger people were assumed to be less wedded to traditional worldviews and thus more supportive of the NEP), education (the better educated were assumed to be exposed to more information about environmental issues and to be more capable of comprehending the ecological perspective implicit in the NEP) and political ideology (liberals were assumed to be less committed to the status quo in general and the DSP in particular). Although there have been some exceptions, most studies have continued to find support for the NEP to be negatively related to age and positively related to education and liberalism. More importantly, studies that have examined the presumed intervening links between these variables and support for the NEP, such as those that have documented the assumed positive relationship between environmental knowledge and endorsement of the NEP (Arcury, 1990; Arcury, Johnson, & Scollay, 1986; Furman, 1998; Pierce et al., 1992).#p#分页标题#e#

 

The influence of environmental attitudes on resident attitudes towards tourism has been documented by Liu & Var (1986). They found that residents of four counties of Hawaii regarded protection of the environment as being more important than the economic benefits of tourism. Similarly, residents in a resort town on the coast of Turkey (Kuvan & Akan, 2004) expressed concern for the impacts of tourism on the forests in the area. Jurowski et al. (1997) measured environmental (also called ecocentric) attitudes by use of the new ecological (NEP) paradigm scale. The results showed that residents expressing strong environmental attitudes influenced the attitude towards tourism in a negative direction through the intermediate variable 'perceived environmental impact'. The NEP scale was also included in the study by Gursoy et al. (2002), showing that residents expressing a high level of NEP scale scores perceived the costs of tourism to be higher and the benefits to be lower, compared to residents expressing lower NEP scale scores.

 

While the bulk of available evidence converges to suggest the overall validity of the NEP Scale, there is far less consensus on the question of whether the scale measures a single construct or is inherently multidimensional. After a series of U.S. studies (Albrecht et al., 1982; Geller & Lasley, 1985; Noe & Snow, 1990) produced similar results via factor analysis, suggesting that the NEP is composed of three distinct dimensions-balance of nature, limits to growth, and human domination of nature-some researchers began to routinely measure each dimension separately (e.g., Arcury, 1990; Ebreo et al., 1999; Vining & Ebreo, 1992). A careful review of studies that have factor-analyzed the NEP items, however, reveals considerable inconsistency in the number of dimensions actually obtained: Three studies (Edgell & Nowell, 1989; Lefcourt, 1996; Noe & Snow, 1990, p. 24) found all items to load on a single factor with at least one of their samples, and several studies have found only two dimensions in one or more of their samples (Bechtel et al., 1999; Gooch, 1995; Noe&Snow, 1989-90, 1990; Noe&Hammitt, 1992; Scott & Willits, 1994). Although a number of studies have found three dimensions similar to those noted above in one or more samples (Edgell & Nowell, 1989; Noe & Snow, 1989-90; Shetzer, Stackman, & Moore, 1991), still others have found as many as four dimensions (Furman, 1998; Roberts & Bacon, 1997). The above results, combined with the fact that studies finding three dimensions often report some discrepancies in the loadings of individual items, suggest that it may be premature to assume automatically that the 12 NEP items measure three distinct dimensions.

 

假设-Hypotheses

 

Three questions result from the analysis of the literature.?  First, analysis proposes we focus on residents' economic interest in tourism and the future tourism development.?  What is the connection between residents' economic interest in tourism and future tourism development? Second, questions also reflect the attachment of residents to the local community and the tourism development.? Does residents' community attachment affect the tourism development??  Third, the literature suggests there is a relationship between the ecocentric residents and the future tourism development. Do ecocentric residents accept or not future tourism development?#p#分页标题#e#

 

The first hypothesis centers on residents' economic interest in tourism and the future tourism development: (H1) Residents with present economic interests in tourism are more positive towards future tourism development than residents without such interests. The second hypothesis reflects the attachment of residents to the local community and the tourism development: (H2) Residents who are deeply attached to the local community are more skeptical towards future tourism development than less deeply attached residents. A third that comes from the questions reflects the relationship between ecocentric residents and the future tourism development:? (H3) Ecocentric residents are more skeptical towards future tourism development than less ecocentric residents.

 

Furthermore, Conventional wisdom, social exchange theory and prior research (e.g. Gursoy et al., 2002; McGehee & Andereck, 2004) suggest that residents who find that there are environmental, sociocultural or economical benefits to future tourism development will be more positive towards this than residents who do not acknowledge such benefits. So a fourth hypothesis is: (H4) Perceived benefits of tourism (environmental, sociocultural or economic) are positively associated with future tourism development.