Using Decision Trees to Identify Tourism Stakeholders: The Case of Two Eastern North Carolina Counties

Abstract

This paper explores stakeholder involvement in tourism planning, development, and management. For tourism planners to include stakeholders in the tourism planning process those stakeholders and their interests need to be identified. The research reported in this paper describes and applies an analytical technique that is not traditionally used to identify stakeholders. A questionnaire was developed and mailed to stakeholders in two rural communities in North Carolina. The data were analysed with an Exhaustive Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection decision tree. From the results of the decision tree, stakeholder groups were identified in relation to their support for sustainable tourism development in their community.