Changes in Residents' Attitudes toward Tourism over Time: A Cohort Analytical Approach

Tourism development in a community must acknowledge residents' attitudes toward and support for tourism as residents are often the business owners, service providers, or workers, and vote on tax millage funding infrastructure investments. Few studies have examined longitudinal changes in hosts' attitudes to tourism. Using a 7-year period and employing a cohort analytical method, residents' attitudes and time-related effects (i.e., age, period, and birth cohort) were studied in an Alaskan island dependent on fishing-related industries with an emerging tourism industry from small cruise ships and outdoor recreation. Constrained multiple regression analyses identified age effect as the dominant variable explaining changes in residents'attitudes toward economic impacts. Successive young adult cohorts were more likely to have favorable attitudes toward tourism's economic impacts. Residents'perceptions of the leading industry (tourism or seafood) in the community, socioeconomic factors, and the effects of age and period explained variations in their attitudes toward tourism over time.