Community Residents' Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Heritage Tourism in a Historic City

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the residents' perceptions in a historic heritage city in a developed nation by identifying the residents' attitudes towards tourism-related issues, and by examining how socio-economic and demographic indicators influence the residents' perceptions. The results discovered that the majority of residents had positive attitudes towards tourism impacts in the case of York, England. Although respondents seemed to be well aware of the negative aspects, most of them did not resist the additional developments of the industry. Therefore, awareness of tourism's social and environmental costs did not necessarily lead to opposition towards the expansion of the industry. There exists a strong relationship between respondents' socio-economic characteristics and their perceptions of certain tourism-related issues regarding the research questions.