Understanding Residents' Support for Tourism Development: The Case of Aqaba City in Jordan

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the effects of social interaction with tourists, cultural impacts of tourist, welfare impacts of tourism, negative interference of tourism in daily life, economic cost of tourism, sexual permissiveness due to tourism, and perception of crowding on resident support towards sustainable tourism development. A total of 568 questionnaire containing 34 items was used to collect information from the local residents in Aqaba city. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the research hypotheses. Results of the current study revealed that there are significant impacts of six independent variables (i.e. social interaction with tourists, cultural impacts of tourist, welfare impacts of tourism, less negativeness towards interference of tourism in daily life, less economic cost of tourism, and less sexual permissiveness due to tourism) on support for sustainable tourism development; whereas crowding on resident support has not significant impact on it. Results of T-test showed that there is a significant difference in the impact of resident attitudes towards sustainable tourism development in favor of gender. On the other hand, results of ANOVA test found that there is significant difference in the impact of resident attitudes towards sustainable tourism development that can be attributed to age and educational level; whereas no significant difference in favor of personal income.