Knowledge, empowerment, and action: testing the empowerment theory in a tourism context

Abstract

With resident empowerment widely recognized as a prerequisite for sustainable tourism development, this study tested how residents’ perceived knowledge of tourism affects their perceptions of psychological, social, and political empowerment through tourism, and how these, in turn, lead to their political action regarding tourism using Rocha’s (1997) theory of empowerment. Rocha (1997) conceptualized empowerment as beginning at the individual level and eventually welling up into the community level, with political action being the ultimate outcome of community empowerment. To test the hypothesized relationships, data were collected from residents of a booming wine tourism destination (i.e. Fredericksburg, Texas, USA) and analyzed via structural equation modeling. Results indicated that perceived knowledge had positive impacts on perceived psychological, social, and political empowerment, but only social and political empowerment were likely to generate political action. The positive influence of tourism knowledge on political action was partially mediated by social and political empowerment. The findings align with the Rocha’s (1997) theory and suggest empowerment starts at the individual level and moves up to collective empowerment. The findings also underscore the link between knowledge and empowerment, with perceived knowledge of tourism being an important precursor to a sense of resident empowerment and political action regarding tourism.

Keywords:

• Community-based tourism
• perceived knowledge
• resident empowerment
• political action

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge that this study was not funded by any organization.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dongoh Joo

Dongoh Joo is an Assistant Professor of Tourism Management at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA. His primary research interest is in investigating tourists’ and residents’ social interaction from economic and sociological viewpoints; more specifically, how emotion influences individual perception and behavior in event tourism, nature tourism, and community-based tourism settings. Dongoh has presented his works at multiple conferences and published in journals like Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management Perspectives, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, and Community Development.

Kyle Maurice Woosnam

Kyle Maurice Woosnam is an Associate Professor in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, USA. Kyle's research interests concern social-cultural and economic impacts of tourism, resident-tourist interactions within tourist destinations, and sustainable tourism development and planning. Over the course of the last 15 years, he has undertaken numerous research projects focusing on community-level tourism impacts (e.g., social, cultural, and economic). To date, Kyle has conducted research in more than 25 countries, including the United States.

Marianna Strzelecka

Marianna Strzelecka is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism Studies within the School of Business and Economics at Linneaus University, Sweden and a Research Fellow at the Jagiellonian University in Poland. Her interests in sustainable tourism evolved over the years from simply tourism policy and development, toward the political facet of sustainable tourism such as rural community participation and rural community empowerment through tourism in the context of social-political transition. Some of more recent projects focus on the study of justice and empowerment through tourism in the context of conservation conflicts.

B. Bynum Boley

B. Bynum Boley is an Associate Professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management within the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, USA. His research interests focus on sustainable tourism with special attention to how the unique natural and cultural resources of communities can be protected, packaged and marketed to jointly increase sustainability, resident quality of life and a community's competitiveness as a tourism destination.