Considerable research has been conducted about residents' attitudes toward tourism over the last 50 years. The purpose of this research is to develop an improved model to explain residents' attitudes toward tourism. The specific foci of this research are to: (a) examine the mediating effects of personal economic benefits from tourism among determinants of tourism impacts, benefits and costs from tourism development, and support for tourism development; (b) examine the impact of a new variable introduced in the model, economic costs; and (c) test the impacts of residents' ecocentric attitudes on benefits and costs from tourism, and on support for tourism development. This study is based on a self-administered survey, hand-delivered to residents of Iriomote Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan during May and June 2011. This study found positive relationships between residents' ecocentric attitudes and economic costs, and negative relationships between residents' personal economic benefits from tourism and economic costs. This study also found positive relationships between residents' ecocentric attitudes and perceptions of economic, social and cultural, and environmental costs.
Read
