A segmentation analysis of resident attitudes to the social impact of tourism

There is increasing evidence that costs and benefits from tourism do not accrue equally to residents of destination areas despite implicit assumptions to this effect by tourism development bodies. Research into the explanation of resident attitudes towards tourism has been hampered partly by the lack of adequate statistical tools. The applicability of a segmentation procedure to this problem is discussed and examples are given of explanatory models of resident attitudes towards tourism's social impact. Significant differences in resident attitudes are identified and related to personal and locational characteristics, with tourist contact, length of residence, age and language being major explanatory variables. It is argued that such differences should be given greater consideration by public and private tourism development agencies.