Understanding residents’ attitudes towards tourists : connecting stereotypes, emotions and behaviours

Abstract

Understanding residents' attitudes towards tourists is an important area in tourism research as it is concerning host-guest interactions, tourists' experiences and destination images that influence sustainable tourism development. This research presents a tripartite model by connecting the interrelationships amongst stereotypes, emotions, and behaviours of residents against tourists. Data were collected via a multi-national sample of residents from Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The model highlights the influence of the four dimensions of stereotypes (i.e., approachable, competence, boastfulness, and rude) onto the elicitation of upwards assimilative or downwards contrastive emotions (e.g., admiration and contempt), which further cues residents' facilitative or harmful behaviours. The tripartite models enhance tourism knowledge on residents' attitudes and provides insights for tourism policymakers and destination management organizations (DMOs) on managing host-guest relations, such as enlisting residents as place ambassador and educate tourists to ‘act-like-a-local’ with destination norms.