Visitors’ Perceptions of Tourism Impacts: Bruny and Magnetic Islands, Australia

Tourism on islands, as elsewhere, can have positive and negative economic, environmental, and sociocultural impacts. Previous research has focused on residents’ perceptions of these impacts with little emphasis on those of the visitor, resulting in a lack of theorizing and empirical investigation in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of travel research 2013-05, Vol.52 (3), p.392-406
Main Authors: Moyle, Brent D., Weiler, Betty, Croy, Glen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Communities
Economics
Environmental impact
Impact analysis
Islands
Management
Perception
Perceptions
Social exchange theory
Strategy
Studies
Tourism
Tourist attractions
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Tourism on islands, as elsewhere, can have positive and negative economic, environmental, and sociocultural impacts. Previous research has focused on residents’ perceptions of these impacts with little emphasis on those of the visitor, resulting in a lack of theorizing and empirical investigation into how visitors perceive and evaluate their impacts. Based on the premise that a better understanding of the visitor perspective can underpin the proactive management of some tourism impacts, this study uses Social Exchange Theory to explore visitors’ perceptions of tourism impacts on two Australian islands. Overall, visitors recognized that tourism activity increases impacts and evaluated these as mostly positive for the island communities. While visitors were aware of a range of positive and negative impacts, they judged their own impact to be more positive than that of tourism collectively. The findings point to how research can be used to underpin visitor-focused management and mitigation strategies of island destinations.
ISSN:0047-2875
1552-6763
DOI:10.1177/0047287512467702