Residents' Attitude toward Tourism Development: A Sociocultural Perspective

Host population support for tourism development has attracted the attention of researchers in tourism studies. Given the importance of understanding local community support for tourism development, limitations in understanding their priority and lack of a socio-cultural model of support for tourism, this study attempted to model locals' support for tourism development based on socio-cultural factors in Malaysian Homestay program. Using extensive literature review, a tourism support model was proposed including several hypothesized paths. The proposed socio-cultural research framework predicted the impact of Islamic religiosity, locals' knowledge about tourism, intrinsic motivation factors and community attachment on locals support for tourism development through mediating variables of perceived socio-cultural benefits and costs in Malaysian Homestays., the model and paths were tested using structural equation modelling and partial least square algorithm (PLS-SEM) with the aid of SmartPLS software. Findings reveal that locals' support for tourism development in Homestay program is a function of perceived socio-cultural benefits and costs perceived by local community and four independent variables of Islamic religiosity, knowledge about tourism, intrinsic motivations, and community attachment.