Ap, J. and Compton. J. L., Residents" strategies for ... Faris, F., Lawson, R. and Todd, S., A lifestyle analysis of New. Zealand consumers. New Zealand Marketing ...
"lburism Management, Vol. 19, No. 3. pp. 247 256, 1998
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© 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0261-5177/98 $19.00 + 0.00
Pergamon
PII: S02615177(98)00018- I
A comparison of residents' attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations R W Lawson, J Williams, T Young and J Cossens Department of Marketing, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand A comprehensive investigation was carried out into New Zealand residents' perceptions of tourism. Qualitative research was conducted and, in addition to an extensive literature review, formed the basis of the survey instrument. The resulting mail questionnaire was used to survey residents from 10 towns. These towns were selected to provide a representation of places with different roles and levels of involvement with the tourism industry. The article offers a brief background to for each of the destinations surveyed and presents the main findings. Significant differences between towns are examined and a multidimensional scaling approach is used to provide an overall summary of the results. Implications are discussed in the context of how residents' perceptions will affect the future management of tourist destinations at various stages of development. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
This paper looks at the current state of opinion about tourism within 10 different New Zealand towns that have different roles and levels of involvement with the tourism industry. The locations were chosen to reflect as wide a variation as possible in the different community level factors that influence the social impacts of tourism, for example dependence on tourism and seasonality. By comparing the similarities and differences between the towns it is possiblc to suggest some important consequences for the management of tourism destinations.
Introduction
Well over 30years ago Walter Firey argued that sustainable development in any industry relies on the integrated planning and management of three interdependent systems - - the environment, the economy and the society, or culture. ~ In the case of tourism, the society and its culture are often an integral part of the product that brings the visitor to the destination, and the very development of thc industry will have some effect on that society. Although there are many different kinds of tourism, and tourists have different reasons for travel, all tourism involves some degree of interaction between members of a host community and a series of temporary guests to that locale. Any impacts from tourism that cause annoyance or irritation amongst the host community may lead to problems with the long-term sustainability of the industry and the economic benefits that may be derived from it. Inbound tourism into New Zealand has shown very strong growth through the late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. During this period the tourism sector has become established as the country's largest earner of foreign exchange and visitor numbers have more than doubled to reach 1.4 million in the year ending March 1996. International tourism is purported to directly support over 100000 jobs, 25 and in a small country with a population of approximately 3.5 million people, tourism has become a conspicuous and influential force in thc lives of many people.
Background
and literature
The assessment of social impacts may be approached in a number of ways but since the 1970s the most common way of empirically assessing the social impacts of tourism has been through the measurement of residents' attitudes towards the industry and the effects that were perceived in their local communities. 2-H Since the attitudes towards tourism hcld by residents do not exist within a vacuum and are influenced by many factors ranging from the current economic climate and environmental awareness through to cultural prejudices, they are known to vary according to a variety of individual and community, or societal, level factors. For example, at an individual level some research has shown that factors such as age affects attitudes towards tourism. As this paper deals with differ247
A comparison qfl residents'attitudes towaMs tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et aL
ences in attitudes between the residents of different towns with different tourism experiences, it is variation at the societal level that is relevant to this review. The main influencing factors at this level are summarized in the following Fist together with example references. Guest/host ratio - - the lower the guest to host ratio the more the social impacts of tourism will be diluted. ~-15 Perceived cultural or psychic distance between the host and the guest - - the greater the cultural disparity the larger the social impacts. ~-~ Economic dependence on tourism (percentage of economic activity derived from tourism) - - often related to the guest/host ratio so impacts increase as dependency increases but the association between economic dependence and residcnt's support for tourism is difficult to generalize to any simple linear relationship. ~'' Host's control over decision-making - - support for tourism diminishes as local control by (or consultation with) hosts goes down.~7 Stage of life cycle (and time in the tourism industry) - - impacts increase over time and support for tourism from residents may diminish. Because of the problems of completing longitudinal studies this conclusion is based on comparisons between towns at different stages in the destination life cycle. ~'~ Degree of seasonality - - social impacts increase as the seasonality increases. This is also related to the guest/host ratio. Evidence for this is mixed as it is also argued that residents can adopt effective coping strategies for short periods and the off seasons allow them recuperation time. lt)'2(I Type of tourism encountered within the community (e.g. packaged vs FIT). - - this affects the
tions. These were viewed as ways in which the nature of contact between hosts and guests could be reflected as well as the potential cultural differences between the two groups. A short description of each town is offered in the paragraph below giving some main points about the destination. Blenheim is a regional centre at the top of the South Island and situated in an especially important wine growing area. Much of its tourism is domestic and 'wine trails' form an important attraction. Christchurch, like Auckland, is one of the major New Zealand cities. These two cities have the two main international airports and have many international tourists travelling through, but both have substantial other industry to support their local economies. Both cities hold a number of major visitor attractions and they are also home to important event centres for sports, exhibitions, conferences and concerts. Queenstown is a well established major resort for international tourists and the local economy is almost entirely dependent upon tourism. Queenstown is located in an area famous for its scenic grandeur and the mountains, lakes and rivers have provided the basis for activities such as skiing, rafting and jet-boating. Hokitika and Kaikoura are both small towns in traditionally fairly depressed rural areas. Both are experiencing considerable
Whangarei au k,
degree of interaction between the host and guest and seems to have complex effects on residcnts' attitudes because of guest/host ratios and cultural differences. 2~ Many of these are linked to the notion of the destination life cycle. It is hypothesized that the type of tourist changes over the life cycle of the destination as well as the volume. = These factors affect the other issues listed such as guest/host ratio, seasonality and the degree of economic dependence of the destination on tourism. In an effort to understand some of these influences more precisely, resident's perceptions of tourism impacts were measured in 10 towns from different parts of New Zealand, as shown on the map in Figure 1. The towns were chosen to provide variation on the criteria reviewed above by choosing locations of different sizes and with different commitments to tourism as an industry. Also considered in selecting the towns were factors such as the primary origin of tourists visiting, the balance of FITs vs 'scheduled' tourists, and the rural/urban nature of the tourism attrac248
Figure I Ten New Zealand towns smwcycd.
A eornparison of'residents' attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson el al.
growth in tourism. Hokitika is a gateway to the remote West Coast of New Zealand and has an increasing number of FITs, while tourism in Kaikoura has grown very rapidly in the last 10years based on internationally renowned whale and dolphin watching businesses. Napier is an important regional centre with a warm and sunny climate. Within New Zealand, Napier is also famous for its extensive amount of art deco architecture resulting from a major rebuilding of the town following an earthquake in the early 1930s. Rotorua is a well established tourism centre in New Zealand's most important thermal region and it is the main destination where Maori culture is displayed to international tourists. However, compared to Queenstown, Rotorua is many times larger and has important farming and forestry industries as well as tourism. Taupo is a small town in the centre of the North Island. It is a famous trout fishing area where many New Zealanders own second homes and it is close to the main North Island national parks. Whangarei is an important regional centre north of Auckland in an area recognized for beautiful beaches, sailing, snorkelling and other water pastimes.
Methodology The methodology followed a multi-phase approach detailed by Churchill. z-~ This involved a literature study, followed by a qualitative phase and two pretests to refine the questionnaire before it was administered.
Questionnaire design A list of issues was compiled from the literature on social impacts of tourism pertaining to residents' perceptions. These issues were used to develop a structure for a series of focus group interviews which took place in Hokitika, Dunedin, Wanaka, Queenstown, Christchurch, H a n m e r Springs, Auckland, Whangarei, Rotorua and Hamilton. This group of places was again selected to offer a variety of tourism conditions but time and travel costs forced the selection of four different locations from those for the main survey. Since the questionnaire was being constructed to deal with contrasting conditions and to be generally applicable to all situations the use of alternative sights for some of the qualitative work may in fact be regarded as a positive feature. These interviews asked New Zealand people about the impacts of tourism both in their community and on New Zealand in general. Analysis of these interviews reinforced the importance of many issues identified from the literature (such as employment, traffic congestion, and infrastructure) but also revealed other issues of importance to New Zealanders, such as use of National Parks, foreign investment and overcrowding in some towns or at certain natural attractions.
Analysis of the focus group data and the literature resulted in the identification of 141 items. Consideration of these items showed some obvious redundancy and an initial questionnaire which comprised of 115 items was generated. These were developed into five point agree-disagree Likert scales, where a score of 1 represents 'strongly agree' and a score of 5, 'strongly disagree'. This questionnaire was applied to a convenience sample of 350 student respondents to generate data for reduction of the items. Factor analyses of the data resulted in the eventual reduction of these 115 items to 48 which were designed to be representative of the original items. The most sensible solution with the best Cronbach alphas (ranging between 0.65 and 0.89) was obtained using a principal axis extraction with a varimax rotation. Principle axis extraction is viewed as most appropriate here because it works only with the shared variance in the data. However, the preferred rotation would have been an oblique method which would have allowed correlated as opposed to orthogonal factors. Unfortunately, it was not possible to get the oblique solution to converge. The new questionnaire was then pre-tested on a sample of 200 residents from the local city of Dunedin. This second pro-test resulted in the fine tuning of some questions but a total of 48 statements were retained for the final survey.
Data collection method and sample size A mailing list was constructed by randomly selecting names from the telephone directories of the chosen towns. Since it was the intention of the researchers to retain the names and addresses of the respondents to administer a second questionnaire in 1996/1997 it was necessary to obtain prior agreement to participate in the survey to meet both university codes of ethical practice and New Zealand privacy regulations. 4044 New Zealand residents were pre-notified about the research by means of a letter asking them to partake. They also received a post paid reply card to encourage response. This number was selected in order to ensure a final sample size of over 1000 after allowing for mailing list inaccuracies and non-response. Because of the very small size of some of the centres (for example, Hokitika, Kaikoura and Taupo) it was necessary to issue different numbers of invitations across the 10 towns, and the decision to target more responses from Auckland and Christchurch was an effort to catch more of the population variation, including ethnic backgrounds, contained within the major urban centres. From the 4044 invitations 1246 (30.8%) people replied positively to the request to participate. A further 8.9% of those pre-notified about the survey declined the invitation or no longer resided at the given address. Of the 1246 people who agreed to participate 1056 (85%) returned completed and useable questionnaires. A summary of 249
A cornparison (~/'residents' attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et al. Table 1
Survey structure and response rates
Location Blenheim Christchurch Queenstown Hokitika Kaikoura Auckland Napier Rotoura Taupo Whangarei TOTALS
PreNotified RTS 306 518 4(10 249 251 810 405 408 296 401 4044
9 16 60 12 4 44 16 25 26 24 236
No
NonResponse
21 20 11 5 3 15 12 15 6 16 124
162 311 197 160 160 517 258 253 171 250 2439
Questionnaires sent Replies 114 171 132 72 84 234 119 115 94 111 1246
98 145 115 65 75 198 97 94 79 90 1056
response rates by town is shown in Table 1. An incentive was offered to those who completed the questionnaire by a specified deadline, the winner and their companion received a mystery weekend, including air tickets and accommodation for two nights at a mystery destination.
Sample profile The sample was compared to national figures to check some aspects of its representativeness but because of the criteria used to select the towns it was not necessary to expect the sample to match all population characteristics. Three particular differences are noticeable in the sample compared to national statistics:
ance with expectations due to their nature as major urban centres and the types of employment available. One factor known to affect attitudes towards tourism at an individual level is personal gain from the industry. People were also asked if they or anyone in their immediate household had direct contact with tourists as part of their work. One-third of the sample had this kind of contact with tourism with the proportion in Queenstown rising to just over two-thirds. Almost half the Kaikoura respondents also had contact with the tourism while proportions were much lower than the sample average for Auckland and Napier. Overall, it is estimated that tourism contributes one in seven jobs to the New Zealand economy, 25'2~ and with approximately one and half jobs in each household, contact with tourism in our sample seems reasonable for the destinations that were chosen.
Analysis Comparisons of mean scores between towns were obtained using analysis of variance techniques available under SPSS for Windows. Comparisons between individual pairs of towns were examined using the Tukey Test for Honestly Significant Differences which identifies significant differences at a 95% confidence level. An overall appreciation of differences between the towns was obtained by employing multidimensional scaling techniques. M D P R E F was used to obtain a three-dimensional plot showing the relative similarities between towns.
Gender Fifty-eight per cent of respondents were male. This trend was across all locations except Christchurch where a 50/50 response was obtained and is almost certainly the result of using telephone directories for the sampling frame.
Age Over 65s were over-represented in the sample compared to national proportions. Napier, Rotorua and Whangarei showed this trend most clearly. While, as expected, Queenstown was distinctly younger than the rest of the sample.
Ethnic background Maori and Pacific Islanders appear underrepresented in the sample, even in locations such as Whangarei, Auckland and Rotorua. The difficulty of surveying these groups is well recognized in other studies and must be accepted as a limitation. 24 In terms of other personal variables, including income, employment status, level of education, marital status and home ownership, the overall sample followed national averages very closely. Higher education and income levels were noticeable in both Auckland and Christchurch as compared to the other towns in the survey, but this is in accord250
Results Results have been summarized into different sections relating to areas such as economic, occupational and cultural impacts. This kind of classification for tourism impacts was established by Pizam and Milman in 1986'" and was also used by the current authors for a recent review of the literature on tourism's social impacts, z7 Only differences significant as denoted by the Tukey Test for Honestly Significant Differences are included in the discussion. There were several areas, e.g. perceived impacts on the natural environment, where neutral and non-significant results between the towns were identified. Though these may be interesting results in their own right, they do not give any insight into why variations in support for tourism occur between communities and have not been included within this paper.
Economic impacts" Perceived economic impacts were measured in a number of ways relating to (1) bcnefits from tourism, (2) costs associated with its development and (3) control of economic affairs.
A comparison of residents' attitudes towards tourisrn in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et al.
Perceptions of economic benefits were investigated by three aspects - - its overall contribution to the local economy, whether it made other people in the town better off and whether people saw tourism helping their own financial position. Across the whole sample, everyone agrees that tourism benefits the local economy of their community. Mean scores for all towns are all contained in a small range from the most positive 1.49 (Hokitika) through to 1.89 (Rotorua). Likewise there is general agreement that most people in each town benefit economically from tourism. Queenstown is most positive in this aspect (2.27) and Blenheim the most uncertain (3.13). Both these are significantly different from all other towns in the sample. Interestingly, perceptions of tourism helping to improve the economic position of individual respondents are much less favourable. Most people disagreed that tourism helped them personally. Respondents from Blenheim and Whangarei were particularly negative on this (3.93 and 3.85 respectively), and even Queenstown, where the majority of respondents have some employment contact with the industry, the response to personal gain is only neutral (3.13). In summary, people perceive tourism as a good thing to help local economies and they believe that others are benefiting but are much less certain that it has helped their own economic position in any way. Tourism is sometimes perceived as having economic impacts through inflating the cost of living within communities and by making prices for tourism products rise so that they arc placed beyond the means of domestic consumers. Residents of Queenstown, Taupo and Kaikoura were consistent in their beliefs that tourism had raised the cost of living in their area, while Napier, Blenheim, Hokitika and Whangarei residents are more likely to disagree with this feeling. All towns show some agreement that prices of tourism products have risen to the point where they exclude some New Zealanders. Kaikoura and Blenheim express this view most strongly (2.03) and Auckland least definitely (2.59). Another way in which tourism is sometimes perceived as a cost to the community is through subsidies that are paid as part of local rates to offset expenses such as advertising or the infrastructure necessary to support the local industry. Most towns, especially Blenheim and Whangarei, do not see this kind of support as a problem but it is definitely recognized as an issue in Kaikoura (2.12) and Queenstown (2.59). Both of these are smaller towns with a high level of economic dependence on tourism and high visitor-to-host ratios. Perceptions of local ratepayer contribution towards the industry should also be linked to perceptions about what tourists should rightly be charged for. Consistent with the previously mentioned findings, residents of Queenstown and Kaikoura also give some support for the idea that
tourists should be charged more than locals for access to facilities and areas like National Parks. Rotorua and Hokitika also follow this trend, while Napier and Whangarei do not. One of the more controversial aspects of funding tourist developments is the use of foreign investment. All towns show mild support for foreign investment to help develop tourism with Auckland (2.38) most positive and Kaikoura (2.92) thc most negative. While accepting the potential benefits of foreign investment, there is universal concern that more of the returns from such developments in tourism should be retained in New Zealand. This feeling is especially strong in Rotorua, Taupo and Whangarei (1.51, 1.52 and 1.48) and of slightly less concern to the residents of Queenstown than other centres (1.89). The Queenstown figure may be the result of at least three factors. Queenstown is recognized as having more foreign investment related to tourism than other centres and so residents may simply be more familiar living with it and surrounding issues. Also, a younger, more transient, population may be less concerned about this issue and thirdly, since more of the population is involved in tourism, they may recognize some of the other benefits that have accrued to the community through foreign investment in tourism. It has becn noted that the areas showing most concern also have high Maori populations and show a large amount of support for the 'New Zealand First' political party who campaigned strongly on this issue in the 1996 general election. However, significance tests on our data failed to show any differences betwecn Maori and other ethnic groups regarding attitudes towards foreign investment.
Employment impacts As indicated earlier, one in seven .jobs in New Zealand is credited to the tourism industry. Worldwide the figure is estimated at one in nine or ten. At a national level, tourism's contribution to employment creation seems well accepted by all but the actual degree to which it has helped create jobs within individual communities is more controversial in the eyes of residents. Kaikoura and Queenstown are very positive that tourism has contributed to local employment (1.77 and 1.91) while Blenheim and Whangarei are less sure (2.64 and 2.67). The types and value of jobs created by tourism are also open to debate with many accusations that much of the work is menial, low paid and inferior to work created by other industries. Rotorua, Whangarei and Kaikoura are most positive about pay and conditions in the tourism sector (2.74, 2.81 and 2.79), while Queenstown is significantly less favourable (3.29). Two factors may help explain this. Firstly, there may be less local control of tourism businesses in Queenstown and secondly, higher costs 251
A comparison of residents' attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et al.
of living may make pay and conditions seem less favourable. One point of debate related to job creation by tourism is whether many of the jobs created actually go to members of the local community, or whether the industry imports labour as it develops, especially for the more skilled opportunities. Overall, the sample was neutral on this aspect. There was a very slight but significant leaning towards agreement with the proposition in Christchurch (2.88), while two smaller South Island centres (Hokitika and Kaikoura) were quite definite in their opinion that the best jobs had not gone to people outside the local community. A related feature to the source of the labour force is the commitment of tourism workers to participation in local community activities. Obviously people imported, often as transient seasonal labour, are less likely to take a wide interest in community affairs. Queenstown revealed a slight, but significantly different, tendency towards this opinion (2.82) whilst Hokitika was in definite disagreement (3.43). This is consistent with Hokitika's previous perception about the opportunities for locals and the Queenstown sentiment also makes sense in the context of the imported seasonal labour that is known to be used in sectors such as the ski industry.
Infrastructure and .facilities Analysis of previous New Zealand data showed that more New Zealanders supported tourism development because of the perceived contribution to local infrastructure and facilities than for any other reason. 2~ As well as being asked about the perceived benefits from tourism in this regard, respondents to our survey were asked whether their local area had sufficient facilities to cope with the demands of tourists. Kaikoura, Whangarei, Auckland and Hokitika all indicated some slight disagreement that the current provisions for tourism were satisfactory (2.6-2.7), while Rotorua, Blenheim, Queenstown and Christchurch all indicated more satisfaction with the level of facilities (3.3-3.5). Most of these tendencies are understandable. Rotorua and Queenstown are established tourism centres with well-developed facilities, while Christchurch is a major centre with a well-developed infrastructure and Blenheim has less tourism to cope with than the other centres. Among the slightly dissatisfied towns, both Kaikoura and Hokitika are smaller centres with less well-developed infrastructure. They are also newer to tourism and have had less time to develop the infrastructure required to support the industry. The perceptions of Auckland and Whangarei are most difficult to explain. Perhaps the most feasible explanation for Auckland relates to its recognized transport problems with heavy congestion in some parts of the city. Road and rail systems in Auckland are generally recognized as inadequate as they have 252
not kept pace with the growth of the city and it is possible that some blame for this situation is attributed to tourism by part of the population. Other questions in this area related to whether residents attributed improvements in particular areas to the growth of tourism in their town. All centres except Queenstown, which was undecided on the issue, did not believe that tourism had improved basic public services (e.g. water and transport) available to locals. All centres, except for Blenheim, inclined to the view that tourism had helped to improve shopping options in their towns, with Auckland and Taupo especially positive in this respect. It is surprising that such an improvement should be noticed in a major city like Auckland. Likewise all towns, except for Blenheim, were positive that tourism had improved other recreation facilities like parks and pools. Rotorua was most positive in this respect. Increased cultural activities attributable to tourism were perceived by residents in Auckland, Christchurch and Queenstown. A final area related to effects on local consumption opportunities concerns impacts from tourism on the level of service offered. Residents from all towns were in agreement that tourism had helped to raise the standards of service available from businesses in their towns. Blenheim (2.41) was the least enthusiastic in this respect, whilst Auckland, Taupo, Hokitika and Whangarei were very definite (1.89-1.95). Across all aspects related to infrastructure and facilities the most consistent differences between Blenheim as opposed to the rest of the towns surveyed. Blenheim perceives fewer benefits accruing from tourism and this is totally compatible with the type of tourism it currently experiences, the newness of the industry to the area and the level of dependency in relation to its size.
Crime and pollution Different perceptions of three types of adverse social effects were identified in this area. Firstly, Queenstown was different from all other centres with respect to noise pollution from tourism. Even though the mean score was still negative (3.18), it was significantly higher than all other centres. Blenheim and Hokitika provide the strongest contrast at 4.08 and 4.21 respectively. One noise aspect which has caused many complaints in Queenstown is aircraft noise. Restrictions on overall levels and nighttime flying have been in place for some time but this may still be a contributory factor to the Queenstown result. Queenstown is also significantly different from other centres in respect to the two other items in this section - - crime and litter. Queenstown residents report a much higher perception of increased crime associated with tourism (2.27). In contrast Blenheim (3.71) and Hokitika (4.02) have
A comparison of residents'attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et al.
strong opinions not supporting an association between crime and tourism. Queenstown (2.71), along with Kaikoura (2.68), also sees problems relating to increased litter from tourism. All other centres disagree that tourism has increased problems in this respect. It seems an obvious conclusion that planners and managers of the tourism product in Queenstown should be taking note of the warning signs that are contained in these figures. However, it must be cautioned that no causal link has ever been established between tourism per sc and any of these items. They may simply be a feature of growth and development and we lack any equivalent cross industry studies which allow for contrasts with tourism.
Contacts with tourists Social impacts of tourism are also assessed through the degree of contact with tourists to which residents feel that they are subjected, and their attitude towards such contact. Residents of all 10 towns agree that they notice tourists who are visiting their community, though Blenheim and Whangarei are slightly less aware and Hokitika, Kaikoura and Queenstown are much more aware. However, when asked if they avoided places with lots of tourists, residents of Whangarei were more likely than any other centre to agree (2.81) and Rotorua residents to disagree. This response from Whangarei actually accords well with sentiments expressed in the focus group interview conducted in the town. Some members of that group were quite definite that they preferred package tour kind of arrangements which maximized the revenue from tourism into their town while minimizing the amount of contact and change to the routines of most residents. A further measure aimed at assessing attitudes to contact refers to whether people feel like a 'stranger in their own town'. All centres except for Queenstown (2.90) recorded strong disagreement with this sentiment. This exception recognizes Queenstown for what it has become. Tourism provides the basis for most of the economy and the permanent resident population is dwarfed by number of visitors and seasonal workers who spend short periods of time in the town. One of the most persistent complaints about tourists to official bodies, and one which occurred in every focus group we conducted, relates to frustration with the driving standards and the behaviour of tourists on the road. All centres showed some agreement that this was a problem and Queenstown residents indicated particular frustration (2.17). Auckland, Napier and Rotorua residents were the least concerned (2.74, 2.94 and 2.76).
Questions about whether people perceived tourism as exploiting Maori were met with general disagreement. Residents of Taupo and Whangarei were more likely to show slight agreement and Auckland and Queenstown were slightly more likely to disagree. There was no difference in response to this question according to ethnic background.
Impacts' on the atmosphere of the town This final section of impacts is highly associated with the previous areas and relates to the way in which tourism changes the 'feel' of the town as well as the overall quality of life experienced by the residents. With the exception of Queenstown which is neutral on the issue, all centres agree strongly that tourism has improved the overall quality of life in their town. Queenstown and Kaikoura are both very definite in saying that their way of life has changed to accommodate the growth of tourism. This is in complete contrast to Blenheim and Whangarei. Other changes to the atmosphere of the town are generated by the appearance of new buildings and other developments that tourism brings, or by the restoration and preservation of old buildings. Again all ccntres except for Queenstown believe strongly (1.5-2.3) that tourism has improved the physical appearance of their town in this way. Queenstown is the only place to receive a negative score for this item (3.45). Consistent with this are responses as to whether tourism growth has increased local pride in the community. In this case all centres are positive, especially Hokitika, but Queenstown is significantly lower than all other towns. A final question on atmosphere asks if residents believe that the town would be a dull place without tourism. Residents in all towns tended to agree with this statement, with the most definite agreement from Hokitika (2.32) and the most neutral sentiment from Blenheim (2.94).
Overview and d i s c u s s i o n A useful method of condensing these findings and comparing the differences between the town is provided by multidimensional scaling. The mean scores for all the 37 variables on which there were significant differences were used as an input to MDPREF. A three-dimensional solution explaining 48.5% of the variance provided a helpful portrayal of the destinations. Figure 1 and Figure 2 summarize the relative positions of the 10 destinations. Because they were so numerous the individual attribute plots have been removed from the figures and only the most important vectors have been plotted for each dimension. In Figure 2, three destinations are clearly plotted as very different from the main group (Hokitka, Kaikoura and Queenstown) and amongst the main group it is worth noting that the two large cities of 253
A comparison qf" residents' attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et al.
.8
Key: 2 - Napier 3 - Rotorua
improving economy changing atmosphere
Q v
/
4 - Taupo 5 - Blenheim
,
7 - Queenstown 8 - Kaikoura 9 - Hokitika A - Whangarei # - Auckland/
2"
Christchurch
A
5 #
poor 7 employment
-1.8 -2.0 Figure 2
0
Auckland and Christchurch are plotted in exactly the same position. This latter positioning seems eminently sensible since the residents of both cities have low guest-to-host ratios, well-developed infrastructures and broad based economies. Unless there are particular items of concern we would not expect to find extreme attitudes towards tourism in either centre and both occupy the middle range of feelings on most matters in this survey. The placement of Queenstown on its own should also be anticipated considering the previous discussion of results. The important attribute points that contribute to its placement on dimension one are those related to the poorer perceptions of employment and contribution of tourism workers to the town, crime and litter. Queenstown stands out as being distinctly more critical about all these effects of tourism than every other centre. This is a finding in line with expectations concerning destination life cycle theory. Queenstown must be regarded as a mature destination compared to many others in this survcy and it may bc suggested that Queenstown is moving towards an antipathy phase with respect to tourism. This implies that careful management of residents' concerns will be necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of the industry. Since our survey controversy has developed over proposals to construct a casino in Queenstown which has emphasized some of the potential conflicts inherent in the data described this paper. This issue is still unrcsolved but, after much criticism, the local council have gone as far as commissioning a special survey of residents as part of the consultation process. If resident support for tourism developments is to be maintained such practises may have to become a standard part of the management process within the industry. A furthcr piece of data from our study emphasizes the Queenstown situation. Three global questions were included among the 48 items which 254
2.0
Plot of destinations in dimensions one and two.
were designed to indicate overall support for tourism in the town. Interestingly, despite the evident differences in attitudes between the centres on particular items only one of these produced any significant differences between the towns. This question related to a willingness to see further increases in the numbers of tourists visiting the community. All centres, except for Queenstown, recorded a willingness to see more tourists with the most enthusiastic responses were obtained from Napier, Hokitika and Whangarei (1.92, 1.90 and 1.89). Queenstown recorded a neutral response (2.99). Considering that the town is reliant on tourism for its economic base this was an unexpectedly low figure. Hokitika and Kaikoura are distinguished from the other towns on dimension two of Figure 2 by attributes concerned with changing atmosphere, noticing tourists and an enthusiasm for further growth. Hokitika and Kaikoura both show a strong enthusiasm for tourism across nearly all dimensions. The responses from both towns reflect their nature as small, provincial centres that have endured long periods of economic stagnation and which have been given a good boost by recent growth in tourism. Figure 3 shows the placement of the towns in the first and third dimension. The third dimension can be seen to differentiate Blenheim from the main group shown in Figure 1. The differentiating attributes concerned with dimension three are those to do with improved infrastructure, recreational and other activities. The residents of Blenheim obviously see far fewer effects from tourism (positive or negative) than any other centre. This is an interesting finding because, though tourism is a comparatively new emphasis for the town, the local organizers of the industry do see it as a very important contributor to the local economy. One feature that makes Blenheim different from most other towns in the survey is the relative importance
A comparison of residents'attitudes towards tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations." R W Lawson et al.
1.8
lack c,f \i nfra~ tructure effects
Key:
,\
1 - Auckland
,\
9 2
poor emp)~oyment
~
J ~
2 - Napier 3 - Rotorua 4 - Taupo 5 - Blenheim
7
6 - Christchurch
1 6
4
7 - Queenstown 8 - Kaikoura
3
9 - Hokitika A - Whangarei
-2.0
Figure 3
0
2.0
Plot of destinations in dimensions one and three.
of domestic as opposed to international visitors. In part this may make many of the impacts of tourism less conspicuous. None of the other centres stand out as being very different on any of the dimensions in the multidimensional scaling. Overall, Whangarei and Napier exhibit similar response patterns to Blenheim but a little less extreme and not always significantly different from most of the sample. Of the two remaining centres surveyed, Rotorua has the most important commitment to tourism. Though on the main tourism axis for travellers through New Zealand, Rotorua has important forestry and farming industries and a much larger population base than Queenstown. The profile of responses from Rotorua is more akin to Auckland and Christchurch than the smaller tourist towns in the sample. Residents from Taupo express similar opinions is to the overall sample average across nearly all items. Only on two aspects (improved shopping and town image) does it show as anything different to the total sample. In some ways this is a surprising result. During the survey it became obvious that a number of our respondents from Taupo were in fact secondary residents and had homes in Wellington or the Hutt valley. We were unsure whether these people would be relaxed about tourism since they were not domiciled permanently in the town and not too committed, or whether they would take a completely counter opinion if they saw tourism as changing the essential character of the place they had chosen for their second homc. In the event there is nothing distinctive to say about the Taupo response.
Conclusions Differences were identified in the rcsident's perceptions of every type of social impact. With a total of
10 contrasting towns included in the survey, the results from this study represent one of the most comprehensive comparisons of tourism impacts. Generally the results conform to expectations concerning ideas about destination life cycles and varying 'carrying capacities' according to the size and economic diversity of the destination. Contrasts bctween Queenstown and Hokitika and Kaikoura emphasize how residents may become more critical and less enthusiastic over time. The results from Auckland, Christchurch and Rotorua show how larger cities with established infrastructures and wide economic bases support tourism in a more moderate way - - neither so critical nor so enthusiastic. Also, Blenheim indicates how a type of easily assimilated domestic tourism is less noticed than other situations. As a final conclusion it should be notcd that across the whole sample there is universal belief that tourism is a good thing for New Zealand, especially in the context of the economy and employment but rather paradoxically people are less inclined to admit that tourism has been of real benefit to them. Conflicts like this are not unusual in attitude surveys and it is quite often difficult to reconcile the views when developing plans and formulating policies. A second example from this study are the expressions towards foreign investment which were discussed earlier. The people in the study appreciate its contribution towards tourism but want the profits retained in New Zealand. With such attitudes it would be extremely difficult to put a working policy in place that would satisfy both New Zealand residents and the investors. Nevertheless, the tourism industry has to have a mandate from the local community in order to ensure its longer term profitability. Whatever the contradictions that might be apparent in attitudes within the community, planners and businesses responsible for the development of the industry must be prepared to involve 255
A comparison of residents'attitudes towards' tourism in 10 New Zealand destinations: R W Lawson et al.
local c o m m u n i t i e s in c o n s u l t a t i o n . It is also n e c e s s a r y to e n s u r e t h a t t h e y m a n a g e t h e m o r e c r i t i c a l a s p e c t s t h a t a p p e a r as a t o u r i s m d e s t i n a t i o n r e a c h e s maturity.
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