Creating a scale for assessing socially sustainable tourism

Abstract

As destinations absorb ever increasing number of visitors, destination managers become progressively more concerned about the longer term viability of tourism from a resident's perspective. However, few studies have examined the application of real-time social sustainability within tourism, particularly how to measure impacts on social sustainability. This study outlines the development of a valid and reliable scale – the Scale of Social Sustainability (SSS) – for tourism that provides an assessment of social sustainability in destination settings. A 10-step procedure was developed drawing upon the related literature. A telephone poll-based survey generated 1839 valid responses from Hong Kong residents. Hong Kong's growing popularity as a destination provides a rich array of host–guest conflict situations. Dimensionality was identified using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Construct validity, reliability, and stability were assessed, and found good, showing that the scale could be used by other destinations worldwide. The theoretical and managerial implications of the scale are discussed, including options for annual surveys giving policy-makers alerts before situations worsen. Detailed host resident viewpoints and the large scale of the survey can help local residents be informed about tourism development and better involved in the policy formation process. 由于旅游目的地不断吸引着大量的游客，目的地管理人员逐渐开始从居民角度关注旅游业的长期可行性。然而，关于实时可持续性在旅游业方面的应用的文献屈指可数，尤其是如何衡量其对社会可持续性的影响。本文概括了社会可持续发展规模（SSS），这是一个有效可靠规模的发展，而对于旅游业来说，它在目的地背景下提供了一个社会可持续性的评估。文章通过相关文献提出了由十个步骤构成的程序。一项基于电话投票的调查总结了1839个来自香港居民的有效反馈。香港作为旅游目的地，其持续增加的旅游人数产生了一系列主客冲突。研究维度被用于探究性和试验性的因素分析。该分析评估且找到了良好的结构效度、信度和稳度，并表示此规模可以被应用于世界各个旅游目的地。本文还讨论了理论和管理上的规模启示，其中包括可以在情况变糟之前给决策者警示的年度报告，给当地居民提供旅游业发展信息并帮助他们更好地参与到政策制定过程的大规模调查报告。