Host attitudes toward tourism: An improved structural model

Drawing from current literature, a theoretical tourism support model with a series of hypotheses was proposed. The model and the hypotheses were tested by utilizing a two-stage structural equation modeling approach. The findings of this study revealed that the host community backing for tourism development is affected directly and/or indirectly by nine determinants of residents' support: the level of community concern, ecocentric values, utilization of tourism resource base, community attachment, the state of the local economy, economic benefits, social benefits, social costs, and cultural benefits. Further, results indicated that there are interactions among five dimensions of impacts. The proposed model explained the majority of the variance. © 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.