Drivers of community participation in heritage tourism planning: an empirical investigation

ABSTRACT

Despite increased emphasis on community participation in tourism planning, our current knowledge of community attitudes and their motivations to engage in such collaborative governance is limited and fragmented. This paper explores the role of heritage values, tourism and community perceptions held by destination hosts as drivers to willingness to participate in heritage tourism development. Such enquiry aims to enhance our current knowledge of community views and their potential to influence involvement in participatory decision-making in order to inform policy approaches to collaborative heritage tourism strategies. Using a relatively inexperienced destination community (Kastoria, Greece), the study collects quantitative data via an attitudinal survey. Our findings suggest that intentions to participate are mainly driven by community ideals while their positive influence is more evident on community members with high place attachment. Heritage values play a significant role; however, their effects do not always favour participation as they can also act as barriers to involvement. On the other hand, tourism perceptions are found to be mainly insignificant in shaping intentions to participate. Finally, the paper presents and discusses variations between different demographic groups and draws implications for policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage tourism
• community
• participation
• attitudes
• perceptions
• heritage values

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mina Dragouni is a doctoral researcher at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage. Her research focuses on sustainable heritage tourism with specific interest in community participation and collaborative approaches to heritage management. Her recent projects revolve around tourism-led economic growth, multi-stakeholder tourism planning and the shaping of cultural identity in times of crises.

Kalliopi Fouseki is a senior lecturer in Sustainable Heritage at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage. Her research interests are in the areas of social, economic, physical and environmental sustainability of cultural heritage as well as on the philosophical and ethical issues that relate to heritage management. Her most recent projects revolve around heritage and sustainable development, energy efficiency in historic buildings, heritage values and heritage in conflict.