Using residents’ perceptions research to inform planning and management for sustainable tourism: a study of the Gold Coast Schoolies Week, a contentious tourism event

Abstract

The potential for resident attitude surveys to reduce the negative community impacts of tourism is constrained by their emphasis on closed-ended cognitive statements requiring simplistic numeric responses. This paper explores ways to obtain and analyze open-ended survey outputs from 791 residents in order to develop effective prescriptive recommendations for reducing the negative impacts, and increasing positive impacts from Australia's Gold Coast Schoolies Week (GCSW), a contentious event associated with widespread, high-risk antisocial behavior. Thematic content analysis revealed super-themes of unambivalent “opposition” to GCSW (22.0%) and “support” (7.3%), but also three super-themes that are conditional. “Mitigative prevention” (49.8%) includes supervision, alcohol/predator restrictions, spatial/temporal containment and dispersal themes, while “mitigative enhancement” (14.1%) includes constructive diversion, education and balanced media coverage themes. “Mitigative justice” (7.3%) is dominated by rule enforcement. The outcomes indicate support for social exchange theory in the expression of strategies through which those exchanges occur. The mitigative super-themes inform a research-based template for sustainably managing both GCSW and other contentious tourism-related events elsewhere. Using Tosun's three-stage citizen's participation hierarchy, support was indicated for the “induced participation” middle ground of consultation, with little support for top-down “coercive participation”, or for the citizen control of “spontaneous participation”.

居民感知规划和管理可持续旅游：对于黄金海岸教学周的研究，一个有争议的旅游事件

居民态度调查来降低旅游社区的消极影响，通过强调封闭式认知来获取简单的数据。本文探讨了从791个居民那里获得和分析开放式问卷的方法，以制定有效的行为规范，从而降低负面影响， 得出对于澳大利亚黄金海岸教学周的建议， 积极的影响高风险的社会争议事件。内容分析大部分主题研究反对”黄金海岸教“，只有少部分支持，另外三条有条件支持。缓解预防（49.8）包括监督，酒精/捕食者限制，空间/时间遏制和传播，然而“缓解强化”包括建设性的分流、教育和传媒披露。这个结果表明了在交流中，对于社会交换理论的支持。这种镇定剂表明了对可持续管理，黄金海岸教学周和其他有争议的旅游活得支持。采用考察公民参与的层次结构，支持率，表示了“诱导参与” 的高度支持率。自上而下的“强制参与” 和“公民自发参与”的支持率较低。

Keywords:

• resident attitudes
• Schoolies Week
• events
• social exchange theory
• sustainable tourism management
• recommendations

关键词:

• 居民态度
• 教学周
• 事件
• 社会交换理论
• 可持续旅游管理
• 建议

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura J. Lawton

Laura J. Lawton is an associate professor in the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management at Griffith University, Australia. Her specialties include resident perceptions of tourism, special events, cruise ship tourism and sustainable tourism. She is the co-author of the textbook Tourism Management and publishes regularly in high-tier tourism journals. Laura is also a board member and registered accreditation auditor for the International Centre of Excellence in Tourism and Hospitality Education (THE-ICE).

David B. Weaver

David B. Weaver is a professor of tourism research at Griffith University, Australia. His research is focused on the environmental and social aspects of tourism, and relevant areas of inquiry include resident perceptions, ecotourism, tourism in protected areas and dynamics of resort cities. Dave is the author of more than 100 journal articles, book chapters and books. His textbooks Tourism Management and Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism are widely used in tourism programs around the world, and he is an elected fellow in the International Academy for the Study of Tourism.