Residents’ Attitude Toward Tourism in Zwierzyniec Town

Abstract

In recent years, tourism has been playing a more significant role in the economies of Poland, including rural areas, especially in eastern Poland. Therefore, tourism development and management are being integrated with community planning and development, including stakeholders` perception and opinion on tourism. The purpose of the paper is to examine attitudes of residents of small tourist destination toward tourism development. Factor analysis of scaled items measuring their attitudes resulted in four tourism-related factors: Negative social and cultural impact, Affirmative of tourism development, Economic and social benefits and and stronger sense of belonging, Nature and culture conservations. The results indicate that there is a relationship between residents’ affirmation of tourism development and employment in tourism industry.

Keywords

• socioeconomic impacts; resident attitudes
• tourism development
• factor analysis