Resources Science ›› 2019, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (5): 943-954.doi: 10.18402/resci.2019.05.11

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Attitude of Taiwan residents towards tourism from China’s mainland

Yiyi JIANG1,2(), Zhongjuan JI3, Ting XIE4()   

  1. 1. School of Sports Recreation and Tourism, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
    2. China Tourism Academy, Beijing 100005, China
    3. School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
    4. Department of Tourism and MICE, Beijing Institute of Petro-chemical Technology, Beijing 102617, China
  • Received:2018-07-22 Revised:2018-11-14 Online:2019-05-25 Published:2019-05-25

Abstract:

Since the official opening of mainland residents’ travel to Taiwan in 2008, the mainland of China has gradually become an important tourist source market of Taiwan. The support of residents in Taiwan will not only affect the perception and satisfaction of mainland tourists, but also largely influence the tourism market policy between mainland and Taiwan, thus affect the normal communication between the two sides. It is of great academic value and important practical significance to understand Taiwan residents' support of mainland tourists to Taiwan. To reveal the impact of destination residents’ attitude to tourism development, this research built a structural equation model between community attachment, community concern, residents’ perceived benefit, residents’ perceived cost, and support of tourism based on social exchange theory. An on-site questionnaire survey was used to collect data. After excluding incomplete and unusable responses, a total of 341 usable questionnaires were retained for the analysis in SPSS23.0 and AMOS 20. The results of the study indicate that residents’ perceived benefit, perceived cost of tourism, and community concern were positively associated with their support of tourism. Community concern had both direct and indirect effects on attitude and it also affected tourism support attitude through perceived benefit. Community attachment had negative effect on tourism support attitude through perceived benefit. The interaction between community attachment and community concern did not positively affect their support. The relationship between Taiwan residents and community had both direct and indirect impacts on tourism development support. Tourism related policy attaches great importance to the protection of residents and community relations, and actively improve the residents’ participation in tourism development. Tourism managers can improve residents’ support for tourism development by improving the relationship between residents and communities. With increased awareness of the positive role of mainland’s tourism to Taiwan in regards to employment opportunities of ordinary people and youth, development space of Taiwan travel agencies and related industries, protection and revitalization of local culture, stimulating community vitality, optimizing infrastructure development, and other positive effects, support of Taiwan residents for mainland’s tourism may increase. Efforts should be made to expand Taiwan residents’ participation in order to further their understanding of and support to cross-strait economic and social developments.

Key words: relationship between resident and community, tourism support, influencing factors, community attachment, community concern