ABSTRACT
This study probes the influence of community attachment on local entrepreneurs’ perceptions of tourism’s local impacts. Six latent constructs were derived from social exchange theory and community attachment theory; 11 hypotheses were tested, using structural equation modelling, with data from 297 Taiwanese night market entrepreneurs. Significant theoretical contributions to understanding relationships between entrepreneurs and community were found: effects of community satisfaction on support for tourism were significant and fully mediated by perceived benefits. Community factors and tourist contact frequency were important in entrepreneurs’ decisions on further tourism development. Community factors showed low but significant relationships with the perceived costs of tourism, A case is made for sustainable tourism governance measures, including partnership creation, destination management systems, and visitor experience planning.
Acknowledgements
This research project is partly funded by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China (Project grant number: 2018-GMB-041). The authors acknowledge the contribution of Mr Zaw Lwin in proof reading the earlier version of the manuscript, and Dr Kaishan Jiao in providing advices in SPSS and SEM analysis. Special thanks to Dr Anchor Lu, Dr Athena Mak, Dr Li-Ju Chen, and Dr Lai-Hsin Lai for reviewing the questionnaire and providing assistance in mobilizing and training a number of post-graduate students at Taiwan’s National Dong Hwa University for data collection.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.