With the growth of global tourism industry, the heritage tourism industry is expanding worldwide. Malaysia having George Town, Penang and Malacca which are listed on 7 July 2008 in UNESCO World Heritage and has been successfully generated high tourist influx. Yet, the local stakeholders are facing continued challenges in the context of tourism development. The present study explores an understanding whether the residents’ support on tourism is solely due to economic benefits, socio-cultural benefits, and environmental benefits. The present study is conducted through online survey on 134 respondents who are residents of Penang of age above 21 years old, resides in Penang for at least one year, married, head of the family and individuals who are experienced the most and also extend support for local tourism developments. The significant findings and results show that the residents of Penang capture favorable image destination and perceived the tourism impacts positively supporting tourism developments to the extent of 66.42%. Secondly, perceived economic and socio-cultural impacts show positive and significant impacts and mediate fully the relationship between residents' place image and support for tourism development. Thus, perceived positive impacts on tourism developments provide more recreational areas like hyper malls, gardens and theme parks. However, perceived environmental impacts mediate negatively the relationship between residents' place image and support for tourism development. The respondents have perceived negative impacts from tourism developments because crowed place destroys the natural environment including the architectures, Infrastructures and air pollution due to the gas emitted by transportation used by visitors. Furthermore, the study reveals that evictions of original tenants and environmental pollution due to tourists’ influx must be prioritized. In order to maintain the tourist attractions, local tourism authority will draw policies to conserve and preserve the highly valued entities in order to sustain them for the longest period possible. Nonetheless, tourism also known to cause pollutions, traffic congestion, crowding, littering and vandalism whereby residents perceives these as negative impacts of tourism towards environment. It is suggested that the tourist influx should be segregated by giving a thorough consideration for the capacity of facilities and infrastructure.
Aliaga, M., & Genderson, B. (1999). Interactive Statistics. Pennsylvania: Prentice-Hall.
Andereck, K. L., & Nyaupane, G. P. (2010). Exploring the Nature of Tourism and Quality of Life Perceptions among Residents. Journal of Travel Research, 50(3), 248–260. doi:10.1177/0047287510362918
Andereck, K. L., Valentine, K. M., Knopf, R. C. & Vogt C. A., (2005). Residents’ Perceptions of Community Tourism Impacts. Annals of Tourism Research, 32(4), 1056-1076.
Ap, J., & Crompton, J. (1998). “Developing and Testing a Tourism Impact Scale.” Journal of Travel Research, 37, 120–130.
Arjuna, R. (2000). A City at a Crossroad. Retrieved from http://pgoh13.com/asiaweek3102.html on 03/03/3016.
Arthur, P. (2002). Managing Tourism at World Heritage Sites: A Practical Manual for World Heritage Site Managers. Published by UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Bolton, R. (1992). “Place Prosperity vs People Prosperity” Revisited: An Old Issue with a New Angle. Urban Studies, 29(2), 185–203. doi:10.1080/00420989220080261
Chen, C. & Phou, S. (2013). A Closer Look at Destination: Image, Personality, Relationship and Loyalty. Tourism Management, 36, 269-278.
Chen, C. & Tsai, D. (2007). How Destination Image and Evaluative Factors affect Behavioral Intentions? Tourism Management, 28, 1115-1122.
Chen, S. J.(2015). Tourism Stakeholders Attitudes toward Sustainable Development: A Case in the Artic. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 22, 225-230.
Choi, H.-S. C., & Sirakaya, E. (2005). Measuring Residents’ Attitude toward Sustainable Tourism: Development of Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale. Journal of Travel Research, 43(4), 380–394. doi:10.1177/0047287505274651
Devine-Wright, P., & Howes, Y. (2010). Disruption to place attachment and the protection of restorative environments: A wind energy case study. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(3), 271–280. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.01.008
Dyer, P., Gursoy, D., Sharma, B. & Carter, J. (2007). Structural Modeling of Resident Perceptions of Tourism and Associated Development on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Tourism Management, 28, 407-422.
Echtner, C. M., & Ritchie, J. R. B. (2003). The meaning and measurement of destination image: The Journal of Tourism Studies 14(1), 37-48.
Elliot, S., Papadopoulos, N., & Kim, S. S. (2010). An Integrative Model of Place Image. Journal of Travel Research, 50(5), 520–534. doi:10.1177/0047287510379161
Gallarza, M. G., Gil Saura I., & Calderon Garcia H. (2010). Destination Image: Towards a Conceptual Framework. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(1), 56-78.
Garcia, F. A., Vazquez, A. B., & Marcias R. C. (2015). Resident’s Attitudes Toward the Impacts of Tourism. Tourism Management Perspectives, 13, 33-40.
Gu, H. & Ryan, C. (2008). Place Attachment, Identity and Community Impacts of Tourism – the Case of a Beijing Hutong. Tourism Management, 29, 637-647.
Gursoy, D. & Rutherford, D. G. (2004). Host Attitudes Toward Tourism – An Improved Structural Model. Annals of Tourism Research, 31(3), 495-516.
Gursoy, D., Chi, C. G., & Dyer, P. (2010). Locals’ Attitudes toward Mass and Alternative Tourism: The Case of Sunshine Coast, Australia, Journal of Travel Research, 49(3), 381-394.
Gursoy, D., Jurowski, C., & Uysal, M. (2002). Resident Attitudes – A Structural Modeling Approach. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(1), 79-105.
Hair, J. F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J., & Anderson, R. E. (2010). Multivariate Data Analysis (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2013). A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hair, J. F., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt. M. (2011). PLS-SEM: Indeed a Silver Bullet. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 19(2), 139–151.
Hair, J. F., Sarstedt, M., Ringle, C.M., & Mena, J.A. (2012). An Assessment of the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling in marketing research. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
In-Text Citation: (Krishnaswamy, Abdullah, & Wen, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Krishnaswamy, J., Abdullah, D., & Wen, T. C. (2018). An Empirical Study on Residents’ Place Image and Perceived Impacts on Support for Tourism Development in Penang, Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(16), 178–198.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
