Shan Genzhi, Yee Choy Leong, Choo Wei Chong, Ramachandran Sridar & Zhang Ping
Abstract:
The paper analyzes and investigates the factors influencing the residents’ perception and support in the context of rural historical tourism destination based on a revised stakeholder theory. As a core stakeholder, residents’ reluctance and ignorance in participation in tourism have led to some deterioration and damage in historical sites. Thus, sustainable evaluation of local residents is the essential prerequisite to boost a balanced historical tourism development. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test and analyze the measurement model along with the structural model. A survey was undertaken in Qintong ancient town in China, and 232 usable questionnaires were screened to testify the hypotheses. The results show that economic effect, psychological effect, social effect are significant to indigenous residents’ perception and support. Conversely, the finding does not support the positive influence of the sustainable evaluation, or the political effect. The study contributes theoretically to the synthesis and supplement of the previous influential effect in the historical tourism site and proposes certain practical applications for the local authority and practitioners on the implementation of sustainable development in the heritage tourism.
Keywords: community, historical tourism, sustainable evaluation, residents’ perception and support, the stakeholder theory