Community issues and resident opinions of tourism

This paper examines how a sample of residents of ten New Zealand towns perc eives the effect of tourism on their communities. Local opinions and percep tions of tourism were used to segment the sample into four distinct opinion groups using cluster analysis. It was found that those least in favor rate d community-oriented issues to be of greater importance than did other resi dents. Furthermore, importance of local issues to respondents was found to be more useful in interpreting opinion groups than were demographic variabl es. Thus, researchers interested in investigating antecedents of resident p erceptions of tourism need to focus more on personal values (and related co nstructs) and less on demographic factors.