An Empircal Study On The Effect Mechanism Of Residents’ Perceived Tourism Impacts To Their Place Attachment

Under the background of globalization, the issue of “local” and “locality” hadgot the attention of scholars in various countries. Tourism destination as a special“place”, with the promotion of all forces, its local meanings were constantly beendeconstructed and reconstructed, and affected the original inhabitants’ social networkand emotional attachment, which was built on the kinship, geopolitical and popularity.Perceived tourism impacts as an antecedent variables, plays an important role incultivating local residents’ sense of place and they behavior patterns. This papertaking minorities lives in Lijiang city, Yunnan province as an example, through thestudy of the formation process and mechanism of the residents’ place attachment,summarizes the path dependence and factors for place attachment. These areimportant to realize the sustainable development of ethnic tourism areas, and has animportant practical significance for the protection of residents’ interests and culturedevelopment.With the help of two dimensional psychology structure evaluation (placedependence and place identity) for place attachment, this study was based on thecomprehensive analysis of two theoretical system of “perceived tourism impacts” and“place attachment” to build its hypothetical relationship model. This research aimed atto explore the coupling relationships between perceived tourism impacts and placeattachment for the ethnic tourism destination, to analysis the attachment mechanismand features for ethnic residents in the context of different space and time. By usingthe theory of sociology, psychology, geography and management science, theresearch content mainly around the place attachment measurement and evaluateproject, inhabitants’ temporal attachment difference caused by sample characteristics,construction of the hypothetical relationship model to analysis the couplingrelationships between perceived tourism impacts and place attachment, the empiricaldata collection and analysis, model parameters estimation and hypothesis test. Themain findings and conclusions are: Firstly, place attachment can measure through the place dependence and placeidentity two measurement dimensions. For residents in Lijiang, the emotionalattachment is higher than the functional attachment. By constructing a theoreticalmodel and proposing research hypothesis, this study provides a direct empiricalevidence that the perceived tourism impacts could be the pre-variable of placeattachment for inhabitants in minority tourism place.Secondly, in order to distinguish respondents’ perception differences betweentransverse space and longitudinal time, the average perception value of tourismimpacts and attachment to place was analyzed by respondents’ birthplace,investigation sites and length of residence. When the place of birth was as theindependent variable, the study shows that different birthplace of residents have adifferent perception level on place dependence and place identity，native-bornresidents’ perception value of place dependence (M=14.51) was significantly higherthan that of foreign-born residents’(M=11.59), and native-born residents’ perceptionvalue of place identity (M=14.51) was significantly higher than that of foreign-bornresidents’(M=11.59)；when the investigation sites was as the independent variable,the study shows that the higher the level of tourism development in the area, thehigher the level of positive perception of tourism impacts, the lower the level ofnegative perception of tourism impacts, and also the lower the level of perception ofplace dependence and place identity; when the length of residence was as theindependent variable, the study shows that the high level of the length of residence,the lower the level of positive perception of tourism impacts, the higher the level ofnegative perception of tourism impacts, and also the higher the level of perception ofplace dependence and place identity.Thirdly, the two factors of perceived tourism impacts（respectively perceivedpositive tourism impacts and perceived negative tourism impacts, namely ξ&ξ）directly and significantly affect the place dependence. Among them, the positive oftourism impacts has a significant positive impact on place dependence, and the effectvalue of perceived positive tourism impacts place dependence that is γ=0.26（t=2.80）; the negative of tourism impacts has a significant negative influence onplace identity, and the effect value of perceived negative tourism impacts placeidentity that is γ=-0.32（t=-3.37）. The study shows us that perceived tourismimpacts can be used as key elements of driving place dependence for residents intourism destination. Results of the research indicates that the residents’ perception oftourism impacts is the main way of forming their local sense of dependence, the implication we can get from the research is ethnic tourism destination should bestressed to cultivate the positive elements of perceived impacts from tourismdevelopment, so as to strengthen the reliance of residents to local.Fourthly, the two factors of perceived tourism impacts were significantly indirectaffect local residents’ identity（η）. Perceived positive and negative tourism impactshave no significantly direct influence on place identity, but mainly through the placedependence to influence place identity. Among them, perceived positive tourismimpacts has a positive impact on place identity, and the effect value of perceivedpositive tourism impacts place identity is γ=0.11（t=1.04）; perceived negativetourism impacts has a negative influence on place identity, and the effect value ofperceived negative tourism impacts place identity is γ=-0.09（t=-1.30）;perceived positive tourism impacts has a significantly and indirectly positiveinfluence on place identity, and the effect value of perceived positive tourism impactsplace dependence place identity namely is γ β equals0.20; perceivednegative tourism impacts has a significantly and indirectly negative influence on placeidentity, and the effect value of perceived negative tourism impacts placedependence place identity namely is γ β equals-0.24. So the total effectvalue of perceived positive tourism impacts place identity should be0.20plus0.11equals0.31, the total effect value of perceived negative tourism impacts placeidentity should be-0.24plus-0.09equals-0.33. The result shows us that perceivedpositive and negative tourism impacts as the pre-variables（influence factors）weremainly through the place dependence to affect place identity, and the results furtherreveals the particular realization way of perceived positive and negative tourismimpacts influenced on place identity. Therefore, in order to achieve the strengtheningof local residents’ place identity, management of the tourism area should focus onfostering and strengthening residents’ perceived positive tourism impacts andweakening residents’ negative positive tourism impacts.Fifthly, place dependence（η）directly affect place identity（η）. Compared withperceived positive and negative tourism impacts, place dependence is the most criticaldriving factor for place identity. Place dependence has a positive impact on placeidentity, and the effect value of place dependence place identity is β=0.77（t=9.09）. Results of this study indicates that in order to strengthen the tourismdevelopment area resident’ place identity, we should pay more attention to thescientific management and planning of stimulate elements of place dependence, bystimulating residents’ place dependence to strengthen their place identity.