Abstract:

Perceptions and attitudes of the local people towards tourism industry are the most direct factors affecting evaluation of tourism development of a sightseeing place. In order to fully understand conceptions of the local people on tourism development of the world cultural and natural heritage-Wuyi Mountain for decision-making in management of the region, surveys through questionnaires and interviews were performed to collect information and data about the perceptions of and demands for tourism development from local residents in the core areas of the Wuyishan Scenic District (WSD). Factor analysis and ANOVA was done to analyze perceptions of the local residents on influences of tourism development and relationship between the perceptions and demographic social characteristics. Results show that the established indicator system is good enough for use to assess local people′s perceptions on tourism development from the following seven aspects, including infrastructure construction, environment sense, economic concept, income/employment, primitive culture and customs, reputation inheritance, and allocation of business opportunities. It is generally considered among the local people that tourism has become a mainstay industry in the region; the infrastructure facilities have improved greatly; the residents′ income has been increased and their minds have grown more and more positive and opener towards tourism development. However, there is a limited portion of the residents who are seldom involved in the new industry, but exposed to the impact of people from elsewhere sharing benefits of the tourism developmentand have to ensure the negative effects of the tourism development causing changes in environmental and resident experience. People of different demographic groups differ sharply in conception of economic concept, than in conception of primitive culture and infrastructure facilities,little in conception of income/employment and allocation of business opportunities; and the least in conception of environmental experience and reputation inheritance (P＜0.05). People different in gender, age and annual household income do not differ much in conceptions of the seven common factors (P＜0.05); while people different in education, occupation, household size, annual household income from tourism, and ratio of tourism related income to the annual household income do to a varying extent. And people living in different villages have obvious different perceptions of infrastructure construction, economical concept, income/employment, and allocation of business opportunities. It is, therefore, essential for decision-makers to consider the heterogeneous demands of residents living in different villages in the four types of perceptions mentioned above when they make policies or implement management.

Key words: tourism exploitation, demographics, perception, attitude, cultural and natural heritage site, heritage protection, factor analysis