Explaining Residents’ Behavioral Support for Tourism through Two Theoretical Frameworks

Abstract

A plethora of research has concentrated on residents’ degree of support for tourism, albeit focused squarely on either attitudinal or intentional support, and with minimal consideration of how residents’ perceived relationships with tourists may explain support. The focus of this article is therefore to examine a complementary framework linking the theoretical framework of emotional solidarity with the theory of planned behavior to explain residents’ behavioral support for tourism. On-site survey data were collected from 740 residents of the highly popular coastal destination, Izmir, Turkey, to test the proposed model. Of the nine hypotheses examined, eight were supported. Emotional solidarity, attitudinal support for tourism, attitudinal contributions to community, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms collectively explained 42% of the variance in residents’ behavioral intentions to support tourism. Behavioral intentions, in turn, uniquely explained 23% of the variance in residents’ behavioral support for tourism. Study implications, limitations, and future research suggestions are offered.