Resident sentiment toward a dominant tourist market: scale development and validation

Abstract

Given the limitations in existing resident attitude research, a new concept of resident sentiment is proposed to describe local residents’ overall perceptions of and emotional dispositions toward a dominant tourist market, in which attitude is a constituent part and behavioral response is implied. To operationalize this higher-order latent concept, this study developed measurements for its five components (cognitive and affective attitudes, identification, and two collective mentalities) identified from an earlier exploratory study. An online survey received 1,000 usable responses from Hong Kong residents to validate this construct in a nomological network. The results not only indicate the reliability and validity of the refined scales, but also provide support for resident sentiment as a better indicator of residents’ behavioral responses than attitude. Resident sentiment has the potential for significant use in extending resident attitude studies by academics, as well as being a performance measure for practitioners seeking destination sustainability.