Local residents’ support for sport tourism development: the moderating effect of tourism dependency

ABSTRACT

The development of sport tourism has attracted much attention due do its promise to improve the societal welfare and quality of life of the host community. An effective tourism promotion plan will improve societal quality of life and benefit national economy. The success of sport tourism commercially and traditionally contributes to local residents in terms of economic, social, environmental and cultural benefits. Declining sports tourism income and number of attendees have driven empirical research which considers factors that lead to these problems. This study aims to examine how place image and knowledge about tourism contribute to residents’ support for sport tourism development with the moderating effect of tourism dependency. A total of 300 local residents participated in this research. Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to conduct inferential analysis. It was found that place image and knowledge about tourism positively influence residents’ support for sport tourism development. Interestingly, both relationships are moderated by tourism dependency. The findings of this study contribute to the existing body of knowledge in explaining host communities’ support for sport tourism development. Furthermore, this study has several implications for stakeholders including policymakers, society, and the Ministries of Tourism and Sport.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport tourism
• resident support
• place image
• knowledge about tourism
• tourism dependency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).