A Longitudinal Research On Residents Perception Of Tourism Impact

Residents perception of impact of tourism is important for sustainable tourism. At present the research on the tourism impact in China is still in the primary stage. On the basis of 26 questions to residents of Ciqikou old town, this paper analyzes residents perception of environmental, social and economic impact, and psychological feelings. It founds that residents normally support the tourism development and perceive their living level has been raised; they think their income has been improved and the regional economy has developed; they can't nearly perceive change of the social impact, including the neighboring relationship, public security and community ethos; most of the residents perceive the social strcztificcztion and the people who benefit most are the people out of town; most of the residents can perceive heavy pollution. On the basis of the demographic character, this paper analyzes the discrepancy of residents perception. Residents of different Age, whether is the owner of the house or not have different perception of supporting, impact of economic income and social impacts; residents of different education have different attitude on the tourism scale and environment; residents living in different area have different perception of tourism scale, economic and environmental impacts.Based on the data of 2003 and 2008, this paper analyzes the longitude change of residential perception. It is found that the supporting attitude has decreased during 5 years although the supporting attitude is obvious; tourism development has brought environmental pollution, but it is less polluted than neighboring area and living environment is still comfortable; the social dissever has emerged as the residents think the degree of strcztificcztion increased and economic benefits are occupied by the people out of town; the more attached to the community, the less supporting can be found; benefits among the residents also show big difference, especially the elder people can perceive least benefits from tourism development; although the opportunities of employments and individual income can be perceived to increase, residents show doubts about the development of total economy in the area.Based on the analysis of residents perception of tourism impact, this paper summarizes following theories: tourism development will bring out 'crowding out effect'; residents who live in the urban or nearby attraction can perceive less tourism impact; tourism will bring out the social dissever easily; the development model like Ciqikou is difficult to benefit all the community residents; Chinese residents perceive less social cost; tourism development cannot bring lasting and high increase of economy.Based on the analysis and inference, this paper raised following suggestion to the tourism development of Ciqikou: new developing model should be found to benefit all the community residents; legislative framework should be built to protect the ownership of the aboriginal residents; tourism development should be based on the long benefits of community and the direction of development should be decided by the residents; tourism development should serve community residents and the ultimate purpose of development is to improve the living quality of residents and facilitate the development of community; local government should build the protecting mechanism to protect the local culture.The innovation of this paper are as followed, it is a longitude research on the perception of tourism impact of residents, characteristics of perception of residents who live in the urban or nearby attractions and the theory of 'crowding out effect' has been found.