Community issues and resident opinions of tourism

This paper examines how a sample of residents of ten New Zealand towns perceives the effect of tourism on their communities. Local opinions and perceptions of tourism were used to segment the sample into four distinct opinion groups using cluster analysis. It was found that those least in favor rated community-oriented issues to be of greater importance than did other residents. Furthermore, importance of local issues to respondents was found to be more useful in interpreting opinion groups than were demographic variables. Thus, researchers interested in investigating antecedents of resident perceptions of tourism need to focus more on personal values (and related constructs) and less on demographic factors.