| The early years of tourism development and research focused almost exclusively on opportunities and plans to promote tourism. By the 1970s, community perceptions of negative impacts encouraged preliminary research into community attitudes about tourism to overcome opposition to tourism development. This current study of attitudes toward tourism development in Charleston, South Carolina, extends the research to include relational attachment variables, such as friendship, kinship, and organizational ties. Primary objectives of this study included understanding differences in attitudes toward tourism development among neighborhoods based on community attachment variables and exploring the role of community attachment variables in predicting attitudes toward tourism development.; The study was conducted by telephone during the fall 1999 semester at Clemson University. The instrument included the Tourism Impact Assessment Scale (TIAS), developed by Lankford and Howard (1993), and an attachment profile. Adapted for telephone interviewing, the TIAS included 19 items rated on a 5-point response format. The sampling procedure was a random sample of four neighborhoods in Charleston: Ansonborough, Downtown, Harleston Village, and South of Broad. A total of 416 surveys were completed for a 58% response rate.; Chi-square analysis revealed a significant association among community attachment variables. In addition, a t-test showed significant differences between tourism employees and non-tourism employees regarding resident attitudes toward tourism development based on community attachment variables. The TIAS items factored into three dimensions: negative impacts, economic benefits, and cultural benefits. Based on cluster analysis, there was no significant relationship between community attachment and development, economic, and cultural factors. However, significant differences were found between neighborhoods based on ANOVA testing. In addition, regression analysis revealed that tourism employment, gender, number of relatives, and neighborhood of residence were significant predictors of perceived economic benefits; and neighborhood and homeownership were significant predictors of perceived cultural benefits.; The findings imply the use of educational and promotional materials targeting non-tourism employees, women, extended families, homeowners, and residents of South of Broad. The findings also imply a role for the tourism planner as a “translator” of competing groups and interests, including neighborhoods and “native” versus “hometown” residents. Significant differences in attitudes toward tourism development at the neighborhood level call into question previous assumptions regarding tourism irritation levels in a community and the structure of the tourism region. Finally, the sum of significant attachment variables suggest a partial equation for attachment that may be termed “investment plus roots”: attitudes toward tourism development may be a function of neighborhood of residence, the amount of economic investment made there, and the relational bonds that bind household economies or “collective investments” together. |
