Tourism Resident Development
Residents' Attitude toward Sustainable Tourism
In the past three decades there has been an expansion growing research related to resident attitudes toward tourism and its impacts. Among scholars in the field of tourism it is wildly accepted that residents are key actors in the tourism development process as they are straight influenced by it (Ap 1992; Murphy 1985; Gunn 1994).In the 80's Murphy (1985) argued that the “good will and cooperation of host community” is one of the fundamental components of community development.
In the literature review, sustainable tourism as a promising paradigm appears to boost the role of residents by making them the central point of existing conceptual frameworks on tourism planning and development. Certainly, supporting community residents' participation directly and indirectly is the base of sustainable paradigm (Butcher 1997; Jamieson and Jamal 1997; Hunter1997).The aim of this study to investigate the role of residents' attitude toward tourism development process as major stakeholders who should be incorporated in the tourism planning and policy. For this study attitude is defined as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour” (Eagly and Chaiken 1993, P. 1).
The concerns explained in the previous paragraph raise a number of questions which, each of which would act to direct a line of research:
-To what extent are residents participating in tourism development process?
-What are the main aspects of community's attitude toward sustainable tourism?
- To what extent are various demotions of sustainability emerging within residents' attitude?
Research method
According to Wanhil's (1995) point of view, the most significant contribution of researchers to his or her field is the improvement of theories and tools for destination planning and policy makers. In this regard, the current study aims to explore how residents' attitude toward sustainable development play crucial role in tourism paradigm. The principal vehicle for this study is likely to be interviews which are selected as a most important part of the assessment which will be made up of acquirement knowledge and understanding of tourism processes as they function in practice from an extensive range of stakeholders involved in them(George and Kirkpatrick, 2006). Consequently, various aspects of sustainability would be reflected in the interview's questions, namely, economic benefits, socio-cultural
Impact of tourism, visitor satisfaction, community -based benefits environmental sustainability and public participation.
The method chosen to research this topic is the semi-structured interview. This form of investigation has a number of benefits:
- -It allows the researcher to gather a wide Varity of data on the subject, rather than limiting the interviewee to fixed responses.
- -It allows the researcher to explore hypotheses that he/she may be formulating, by trying out lines of enquiry within the interview.
- -It allows the researcher to test appropriacy of his questions: testing what form or line them should take.
- -It allows the researcher to get an idea of what form a structured (or standardised interview) might take: what options the interviewees need to have when answering the questions ( Oppenheim, 2005).
Expectations and realties:
In general, I had two main concerns about the interview. The first was that even though the first (non-specialist) interviewee had agreed to interview he would treat me very differently from how I would a non-native person or female. My second concern was related to how another interviewee (specialist) would feel about the beginner PhD student in the field of sustainable development. However, the interviewees were very welcoming, friendly, easy and responded positively.
- the interview Selection:
Two interviews were conducted. One of them was with non-specialist person and another with a specialist in the topic of interview. Because of the fact that the topic was related to the people's view in sustainable tourism .consequently, two points of view would deliver wider vision for the topic. The first interview was dull and token longer than I planned which led to unsatisfactory result. That might due to the fact that I randomly chose an ordinary person who might not be aware very much to the concept of sustainability itself. However, He reflexes at least people's point of view.
- the interview's question:
As the type of interview was semi-structured, that required a variety of requirements such as guided approach, set of issues to discuss and interviewer adapts to response (Patton, 2002).
- the place:
A quiet and near place was needed for the interview for two reasons:
- This first experiences had been recommended to carry out the interview within university's camps with two staff member who are specialists in the topic of sustainable tourism to save time and effort.
- In order to make the best recording of the interview it was necessary to find quiet place to concentrate later in the transcribing stage.
- the time:
I was expected the interview would take time less than it was take. But in the real fact I had a slight difficulty to control time. on the one hand, The non- specialists interviewee required extra time for the propos of questions' clarification. On the other hand, the specialist interviewee takes loner time to give more information.
- The interview's progress:
As a result of the introduction of the topic this had been sent by email in advance to both of interviewees, the interview was fluid and quite understandable which make my task easier. I began then by asking the interviewee about his/her full name. The full agreement to give names was given by interviewees .I made an interview schedule (see appendix) before the interviews, which set out themselves of the interview.
A good start to an interview was to give the interviewee an open question that required his and her opinion and experience which hopefully got them interested. It was my intention to conduct the interview after that to create questions that would keep the interview going as a fruitful conversation.
I contacted one of the interviews at the department of Town and Regional Planning-Sheffield University, another one was at the second interviewee's home, and both of them were as a convenient place for the interviews. The answers were positive, interested and led to other questions which kept the interview going for 45 minutes. Including the unexpected explanations and extra information the interviewee took 45 minutes: 15 minutes more than intended.
Actually though, I was enjoying the interaction of the interview. Most of the questions I had prepared in my interview schedule were coming up naturally by themselves, and often the interviewees would deliver volunteer information that I had intended to ask about. Ultimately, I expressed my pleasure and thank interviewees for all the insight and information that they had given me.
Problems and Lessons:
Although the research method chosen offers a number of advantages, it nevertheless has some drawbacks, particularly when I conducted with non-specialist interviewee in such a way that he was not aware of some aspect of sustainable tourism which might due to the structure of questions which were not fitted the level of interviewee's knowledge. Indeed, semi-structured interview schedule raises up many problems “problems of mediating between the input of the interview guide and the aims of the research question on the one hand, and the interviewee's style of presentation on the other” (Flick, 2002, P.92). It could be argued that he might gain different experience; however, I recruited him by cheerful “eye contact”.
Regarding to the specialist interviewee, she explained her views on many of the aspects of the topic, some of them were not included in my questions.
Consequently, those lead to take into my account this matter in the future interview. In other words, I should beer in mind that target interview from particular backgrounds.
In terms of transcribing stage, I had slight difficulties to go throw process that due to the fact that I have been new about this kind of research methodology .so I think that it took me loner time in such a way that transcription required four hours fore 45 minutes interview. As result of this, I realized that I need to know which qualitative methodologies might be best used and how they can used to achieve particular research aims(Limb and Dwyer;2001).Otherwise, it might like to be lost in worthless research methodology.
Some Final words
Nevertheless, overall, I have had stimulating experience which was starting from lectures till last step writing this report .the interviews went good with me having to do little, but guide the interviewee in the direction that I needed them to go. I do realise though, after listening to the recording and transcribing, that there are some things that I need to be careful of:
- To listen to the interviewee carefully so as to stick to the purpose of the interview.
- To think more about how to manage the conversation with the interviewee
- To plan the time and place of the interview more carefully.
- To be more careful about what I say so as to avoid misunderstanding.
As such, One of the most important central points of the interview's success is that the level of interpersonal listing skills of the interviewer (Limb and Dwyer, 2001). Certainly, “skilled interviewers are remarkable for the economy of what they say” (Gilhams, 2000, P.80).
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