Sustainable Tourism Development in Cape Verde Islands: Antecedents and Consequence

Research on resident attitudes and support for tourism development and sustainability and tourists' satisfaction and destination loyalty formation are among the most well-researched and important topics within tourism research literature. This study sought to contribute to these fields of research in three specific ways. First, this study developed and validated a maximum parsimonious version of sustainable tourism attitude scale (SUS-TAS) through the first- and second-orders confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), confirming that SUS-TAS can be loaded in two broader dimensions named 'perceived tourism impacts' and 'expected tourism sustainability'. Also, it was found that these two SUS-TAS dimensions resulted from the second-order factor model predict 'residents' support for sustainable tourism development'. The study concluded that the maximum parsimonious version of SUS-TAS can be both interpreted by seven individuals factors and/or as a global factor as indicated by the hierarchical measurement model and predictive validity. The second contribution of the study starts from taking the previously economic (i.e. the state of the local economy and perceived personal economic benefits from tourism) and non-economic (i.e. residents welcoming tourists) scales and integrates them as predictors of attitudes to the impacts and pro-tourism development behaviour. The results found that all the three independent variables (e.g. the state of the local economy, perceived personal economic benefits and residents welcoming tourists) had significant relationships with the attitudes to the positive and negative impacts of tourism. Similarly, the residents' positive and negative attitudes towards tourism were found to influence pro-tourism development behaviour. Likewise, the state of the local economy and residents' perceived personal economic benefits from tourism were the only constructs that directly influence residents' pro-tourism development behaviour while the relationship between residents degree of welcoming tourists and residents' pro-tourism behaviour was mediated by residents' positive attitudes to tourism only. For the both above mentioned studies, the data collection was carried out in the islands of Boa Vista and Sal in Cape Verde. A questionnaire was applied to 418 residents in these two islands and the quota sampling approach was used with the sample distributed in proportion to the population's distribution in these two islands, by gender and age group.Lastly, whether tourists perceive that residents foster positive attitude and pro-tourism behaviour among them this same perception may contribute to enhance their own satisfaction and loyalty formation. Therefore, this part of the study proposes a theoretical model integrating two lines of tourism research: emotional solidarity and destination loyalty. In order to test the proposed model, 464 surveys of international tourists were conducted in two international airports on the islands of Boa Vista and Sal. Tourists were intercepted in the international departure hall before leaving Cape Verde, following their check-in procedures with each airline. Structural equation modeling and moderated mediation analysis were implemented to assess the relationships involving visitors' emotional solidarity with residents, satisfaction and destination loyalty. The three dimensions of emotional solidarity were considered in the study: feeling welcomed, sympathetic understanding and emotional closeness. Results indicated that visitors' feeling welcomed and sympathetic understanding directly influence loyalty. In particular, the relationships involving visitors' feeling welcomed by residents, emotional closeness with residents and sympathetic understanding with residents and loyalty were all mediated by satisfaction. Additionally, gender was found to moderate the conditional indirect effects of emotional closeness and feeling welcomed on loyalty (via satisfaction). Such relationships were stronger among male visitors. Overall, on one hand, this study confirms the premise that residents with pro-tourism attitudes can develop pro-tourism development behaviour; and on the other hand, when residents act as welcoming hosts and interact with tourists in a good manner the context is seen as favourable to increase tourists' satisfaction and loyalty formation.