ATTACHMENT : CASE STUDY
THE EFFECTS OF RESIDENTS’ IMAGE AND PERCEIVED TOURISM IMPACT TO RESIDENCE SATISFACTION AND SUPPORT: A CASE STUDY OF HUA-HIN PRACHUBKIRIKHAN
Tourism is recognized as the main industry that has made jobs for people and earned incomes in the nation for a long time. Residents support is one of the important factor that makes tourism successfully. This study constructed a model of residents’ support for testing the relationship among residents’ image, resident’ perceived tourism impact to residence satisfaction and support. Then, empirical testing was used for examining effects of the model. The sample was 400 people in Hua-hin Prachubkirikhan, who were selected by convenience sampling. The research The instrument was a questionnaire which divided into 5 parts, general data, Hua-Hin Image of residents, perceived Tourism impact (economic, social and environmental), resident satisfaction, and resident support. The usage statistical methods consisting of frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and structural equation model. It was found that all of hypothesizes, except environmental impact to resident satisfaction, affected the positive results significantly. While the resident’s perceived environmental impact affected the negative results to the resident’s satisfaction significantly
One of most important component can be explained by perceived positive or negative impacts by local residents. Under sustainable tourism framework, the impacts to be evaluated are based on the Triple Bottom Line-model (TBL) which defines the impact of tourism as the mixture of the social, economic, cultural, and environmental benefits. It is very interesting that perceived tourism impact towards residents’ support for tourism development is proposed to be the result of destination image perceived by local residents of that destination. Information obtained from the study will be used in related tourism planning with the purpose to keep Hua Hin as the most sustainable seaside destination proximity to Bangkok.
Tourism is one of the key economics’ drivers for many counties including Thailand. Tourism development is, therefore, an important agenda of policy planning in national, regional, and local level. In today’s high competitive environment and negative change in society due to improperly consume tourism’ resources, tourism development is required to be conducted in more sustainable manner to achieve a desired goals known as sustainable tourism. From perspective, as one should expect, community plays an important role in tourism management as it is one of the key stakeholders among five groups of stakeholders: tourist, tourism sector organizations, community, environment and government. Community residents are the people who permanently live in the tourism destination. Also included are their elected representatives, community and interest groups, and non-tourism businesses. These residents are very important in tourism development because they participate with tourism in many ways. For example, residents interact and share local facilities and services with tourists. They can give tourists an unforgettable experience welcome. This means that understanding local residents' reactions towards tourism development and the factors that may influence their reactions is essential in achieving a host community's support for tourism development.
Destination image can be defined as the perceptions of travelers about places on a basis of a few selected impressions among the flood of total impressions (Lopes, 2011). In general, places with strong image can differentiated themselves from competitors more easily and destinations with stronger and more positive image more likely to be chosen at the end of travel planning process. As mentioned above that community is one of the key stakeholders in tourism management, questions should be raised whether the destination image hold by residents of that destination influences any drivers in tourism development. From marketing perspective, the conflicting view between the external representation of the destination and the destination image held by the host of community can lead to resentment toward the tourism development. The developments which promote “standardized placeless images” whereas residents are more likely to support efforts that promote the distinctiveness of the place and its local inhabitants. The results indicate that residents, who hold a more positive image display higher disposition toward state funding for tourism development, are more likely to recommend North Dakota as a destination to visit, and engage in more trips within the area which is opposite to those holding a less positive image of the destination.
The increasing rate growth of tourism and the increased intensity of tourism activities, many local communities are experiencing the impacts from such situation. While many of these impacts have a positive effect for the host community, negative impacts can also occur if those in a position to influence the direction of development become insensitive to the potential of the impacts. From tourism development perspective, perceived positive or negative impacts by local residents is an important factor to determine whether any tourism development projects will gain the support from local residents. Many tourism researches explain this phenomenon based on Social Exchange Theory (SET). . SET suggests people evaluate an exchange based on the costs and benefits incurred as a result of that exchange. Residents who perceive themselves as benefiting from tourism are likely to view it positively. The impacts from tourism development can cover many aspects. the direct negative effect of environmental impact on tourism support indicates that local residents are highly concerned with the negative effect of tourism development on the environment. Economic impact is the main factor influencing local resident support for tourism development especially in traditional tourist destinations such as Phuket and Pattaya. In more new tourist destination like Chiang Mai and Pai, local residents pay attention more on local employment opportunities. the community is divided on the issue of support for tourism development based on the perceived benefits and costs of tourism and that the anticipated negative environment consequences are significantly more influential than positive economic or social impacts.
On host community tourism attitudes and perceptions have focused on differences in the perceived impacts of tourism among different types of local residents, a few have discussed relationship between residents’ perception of tourism impacts and attitudes toward their own community. The strongest relationship revealed by the study indicates that residents who more positively perceive the environmental impacts of tourism will have higher overall community satisfaction.
Hua Hin is one of the most well-known tourist destinations among Thai tourists and visitors partly, its tourism has been promoted in various ways. Hua Hin is a place of all-year-long tourist activities. For example, visitors can swim in the sea even in the monsoon because the wind is not so strong. The key point in collecting data was collecting only one person in one family. In final, 400 sample was collected. The questionnaire which was in Thai language comprised three main sections.
The first section aimed to ask about general data consisting of gender, age, occupation, education level, Household income, number in family, working about tourism or not, and number of year stayed in Hua-Hin.
The second measure residents' place image by asking participants to indicate about Hua-Hin, using a Likert-type scale.
The third section of the questionnaire measured residents' perception of the three domains of tourism impacts. Perceived environmental impacts were evaluated using four items, perceived economic impacts were measured by five items, and fours items was used to measure socio impacts.
The last sections focused on residents' support for tourism development by 4 questions (from 1 strong negative to 5 strong positive).
The influence of residents' place image, perceived economic impacts, perceived socio impacts, perceived environmental impacts, residents’ satisfaction and residents' support for tourism development were tested.
Impacts of Tourism: Hua Hin, Thailand
Positive
Sociocultural
* Private walkway into a road for better transport.
* Bigger school (Club Med has moved the school in order to build on the previous school area).
* Cultural integration, on the other hand, tourists view the local as subservient.
* Earn money from tourists (direct and/or indirect) àbetter standard of living
Economic
* Employment opportunities for locals – hotel industry, selling souvenirs.
* Jobs that are indirectly part of the tourism sector but which are reliant on it benefits, e.g. food producers and laundry services.
* Tourism creates revenue and jobs, increase GDP per capita.
* People sending earnings back to rural provinces developing there.
Environmental
* Makes people want to keep the beach and water clean, because if polluted, tourism declines, stagnation phase on the Butler’s model.
* Clean water is used in hotels.
* Sewage treatment plants.
Technological
* Sewage treatment plants, water used to water the grounds of the hotel, Holiday Inn.
* Without tourism, proper sewage treatment plants may not be in place.
* Infrastructure improvements, e.g. airport expanded, people become mobile, local can travel one place to another.
Conclusion The findings from this research contributed to support Stylidis et.al (2014) that found that residents’ place image affected to perceived economic, socio, and environmental impact. It also both supported and opposed Kim et al (2013) because they found that economic impact affected to satisfaction positively, socio affected negatively, and enviro