Perception Differences of Socio- cultural Impacts of Tourism: A Study with Reference to Demographic Factors in Hikkaduwa Region
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Date
2013
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Tourism is often referred to as the world’s largest industry and regarded as a mean of achieving
development in destination areas (Sharpley, 2002). The perception is a process by which people
translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view of the world around them.
Though necessarily based on incomplete and unverified information, perception is equated with
reality for most practical purposes and guides human behavior in general.
Ap (1992) and Lankford (1994) indicate that the perceptions and attitudes of residents toward
the impacts of tourism tend to be a key planning and policy consideration for the successful
development and operation of existing and future projects. According to Pizam and Milman
(1984) “tourism is contributing to the changes in value systems, individual behavior, family
relationships collective lifestyles, moral conduct, creative expressions, traditional ceremonies
and community organization”. Further, in a study using segmentation analysis examining
residents’ attitudes toward tourism in Scotland from a socio-demographic perspective,
Brougham and Butler (1981) found that there are significant differences in residents’ attitudes
related to local and personal characteristics, with tourist contact, length of residence, age and
language. Moreover, in a study measuring residents’ attachment levels in a host community in
New Braunfels, Texas, Um and Crompton (1987) found that the more attached a resident was to
his or her community in terms of birthplace, heritage, and length of residence, the less favorably
he or she perceived tourism impacts. Similarly, the results of the study of Kusadasi et al. (2002)
witness a significant relationship between age and length of residence and attitude toward
tourism development. In terms of length of residence, Girard and Gartner (1993) discovered that
both long-term and short-term second homeowners appreciated the availability of goods and
services from increased tourism, but long-term residents tended not want to see an increase in
tourism development in their study in Wisconsin.
Tourism industry has a great impact on socio-cultural aspects of a country (Bandara, 2001).
With reference to the past research findings it was clear that, there are different ideas in relation
to the perception on social and cultural impacts of tourism and this may be due to contextual
differences and methodological differences. Hence, this study was focusing on residents’
perception on social and cultural impacts of tourism in Hikkaduwa, which is a rapidly growing
tourism zone of the country. Therefore, main objective was to examine the perceptual
differences of residents’ on socio-cultural impacts of tourism in Hikkaduwa tourism zone in
terms of demographic factors of residents.
Methodology
A random sample of 100 residents from Hikkaduwa region was selected for the study and the
principle resident of the household was given with the questionnaire. The structured
questionnaire used to collect data was comprised with two main sections and section -1 was
focusing on the demographic information of the resident and the section-2 was comprised with 5
point Likert Scale questions to measure the perception on socio-cultural impacts of tourism.
The data were analyzed by using non-parametric tests of Mann-Witney U test when there are
two categories in the independent variable and Kruskalwallis test when there are more than two
categories in the independent variable.
Description
Keywords
Management, Entrepreneurship and management, Tourism Management, Tourism, Tourism Industry, cultural Impacts, Social Sciences