The Tourism Product in Ambleside, Lake District - Research Proposal Example

Perception Study of the Tourism Product in Ambleside, Lake District" Research Objectives: Part One: This study will examine the attitudes toward tourism of residents from the Ambleside Lake District. Commonly following the model developed by Perdue, Long, and Allen (1990). The research utilized social exchange theory as a foundation to formulate three research questions: 1) do personal characteristics affect perception of tourism; 2) does the extent to which one benefits personally from tourism Development impact perceived positive impacts of tourism, perceived negative impacts of tourism and support for tourism development; and 3) what influences support for tourism planning and management Findings indicated that most of the personal characteristic variables did not predict attitudes toward tourism with the exception of age and having lived in the community as a child. The variable personal benefit of tourism predicted positive impacts of tourism (positive relationship), negative impacts of tourism (negative relationship), and support for additional tourism (positive relationship), consistent with Perdue et al (1990) Support to Justify Study: An extensive array of research has been conducted on resident attitudes toward tourism. Differences in attitudes have been examined according to degree of tourism development (Long, Perdue and Allen 1990), level of an individual's involvement in the tourism industry (Smith and Krannich 1998), maturity of destination (Sheldon and Abenoja 2001), type of tourism development in both the U.S. and abroad (Carlsen, 1999; Ryan and Montgomery 1998), and specific to one major event (Wall 1990). A number of small-scale studies have been conducted utilizing research from one to a few immunities (Andressen and Murphy 1986), but until recently there has been little research that examines a wide range of communities located within close proximity of each other in aggregate (Indirect and Vogt 2000). This study examined the attitudes toward tourism of residents in a dozen communities in Arizona, generally following the model developed by Perdue, Long, and Allen (1990) as part of their studies. . The research utilized social exchange theory as a foundation to formulate three research questions: 1) did personal characteristics affect perception of the impact of tourism when controlling for personal benefit from tourism; 2) did the extent to which one benefited personally from tourism development impact perceived positive impacts of tourism, perceived negative impacts of tourism and support for additional tourism; and did the extent to which one benefited personally from tourism development, perceived positive impacts of tourism, and perceived negative impacts of tourism affect support for additional tourism; and 3) what variables contributed to support for tourism planning. The attitudes of that the residents hold towards tourism and perceptions of its impact on community life must be continually accessed.". (Allen et al. 1988) Methodology: Part Two: It has been established that the objective for this study is to obtain in-depth perceptions of tourism on the residents of Ambleside Lake District because the success of tourism depends upon the perceptions of the residents. The best methodology to meet these objectives is that primary data collection will be collected in the form of a Postal questionnaire of around 100 applicants from the Amber Side Lake district. Mail surveys are a cost effective method of gathering information. (Kaiser and Helber 1978) They cost a little less than telephone interviews, however, they take over twice as long to complete (eight to twelve weeks)." Because there is no interviewer, there is no possibility of interviewer bias. The main disadvantage is the inability to probe respondents for more detailed information.' (Kelly 1992 p 51) Although Email questionnaires are an option it has been decided that this method will not be used. The reason is Email and internet surveys are relatively new and little is known about the effect of sampling bias in internet surveys. While it is clearly the most cost effective and fastest method of distributing a survey, the demographic profile of the internet user does not represent the general population, although this is changing. Before doing an email or internet survey, carefully consider the effect that this bias might have on the results. (Hudman 2002) Mthods: Questionnaire: The questionnaire will be designed with these factors in mind; the variable positive impacts and how they will help predict tourism management, as well they will seek to find support for additional tourism and analyze if this helped predict tourism management and lastly was it a positive rather than a negative relationship. This researcher anticipates that he expected, support for social Exchange theory will show the variable personal benefit to be a significant predictor of tourism planning. This will be predicted through the use of Likert Scale/Rating. The goal of the questionnaire is to gain in-depth perceptions of the Ambleside Lake District residents about tourism. Once the perceptions have been analyzed, they will provide as a predictor to how the economy will be affected by tourism in Ambleside Lake. The participants will be selected through a structured application program that first evaluated Ambleside Lade residents and the community according to several criteria, including policies on the community, cultural diversity, willingness to use collaborative approaches to development, stable political/ organizational structures, and goals and objectives consistent with available expertise. The Ambleside Lake District and the residents represent a geographic distribution across the area, diverse economic bases and resident ethnic backgrounds, and a range of tourism dependency (Andereck and Vogt 2000). The questionnaire that will be used by the researcher for the study will include several variables. Those pertinent to this study can be analyzed using the Likert Scale/Rating. Questions related to characteristics of respondents and several demographic questions will be asked and are used in this analysis. The questions will include: Resident, Characteristics, Personal Benefit from Tourism, Perceived Positive Impacts, Perceived Negative Impacts. The results expect to show support for additional tourism, support for tourism planning. The results will be based on the Ambleside Lake community population. Questions: The questions to be addressed on the questionnaire will include questions to obtain what is perceived as both positive and negative to the residents. These questions will be broken down into categories, including positive and negative, and the questions included in these parts will be used in analysis of the results. The questions will be presented to the participants/residents on the questionnaire with five choices for the participant/resident. It will be explained that by selecting 1-4 for their answer they will indicate if they agree or disagree with the statement. The rating scale will be explained on the questionnaire. 1 will be for strongly disagree, 2 for agree, 3 to disagree and 4 for strongly disagree. If the participant/resident has no feelings one way or the other about the question 5 will be available to express no perception or neutral. The questions will be asked as follows: 1. I will benefit personally from tourism in my community 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree 5. No feelings one way or the other The other questions that will be asked using the same perception scale include: 2. Tourism increases a community's tax revenue 3. The tourism industry provides worthwhile job opportunities for community residents 4. Increasing the number of tourists to a community improves the local economy 5. Tourism provides incentives for restoration of historic buildings 6. Tourism provides cultural exchange and education 7. Native people are being exploited by tourism 8. Tourism causes change in traditional culture 9 Tourism development increases the traffic problems of an area 10. Tourism results in more vandalism in a community Each set of these questions can be elaborated on. The first set (1-5) can be put into the positive category during analysis and the later in the negative. Using these sets of questions or others like it will provide the researcher with an overall view of the perceptions of the views of residents on tourism. These questions or questions similar to these will best provide the researcher with an overall view of how the residents feel about tourism. As well, after analysis it will provide data that will enable the researcher to further study the perceptions of Ambleside Lake residents. For instance if the overall is positive it can be investigated why and the same is applicable for negative aspects. By using these questions and analyzing using the Likert Method it will enable the researcher to reach conclusions and formulate further research questions or areas that need to be addressed from the questionnaires. While providing data for future studies the questionnaires will also be a reliable source to obtain support on the way the resident's perception on tourism slants in Ambleside Lake District. There will also be a blank area provided on the questionnaire for comments and suggestion of the residents. The questions and comments will not be used in the official analysis of the data. However it is anticipated that the researcher will collect honest and useful feedback in this area of the questionnaire. Methods: Analysis: Analysis is an important aspect to the integrity of any methodology and research study. (Abram 1997) Using the Likert Scale/Rating. The reason for this is Like Thurstone or Guttman Scaling, Likert Scaling is a unidimensional scaling method. The basic steps in developing a Likert or "Summative" scale. Defining the Focus. As in all scaling methods, the first step is to define what it is you are trying to measure. Because this is a unidimensional scaling method, it is assumed that the concept you want to measure is one-dimensional in nature. You might operationalize the definition as an instruction to the people who are going to create or generate the initial set of candidate items for your scale. (Abram 1997) hen analyzing the results using the Likert/Scale a set of potential scale items must be generated. After creating the set of potential scale items, they will be rated. These should be items that can be rated on a 1-to-5 or 1-to-7 Disagree-Agree response scale. (Abram, 1992(When this is done the rating of the items can be conducted. The ratings that will be utilized for the study will include: = somewhat unfavorable to the concept = undecided = somewhat favorable to the concept = strongly favorable to the concept Selecting the Items is the next step is to compute the intercorrelations between all pairs of items, based on the ratings. In order to sustain the integrity of the study when making final conclusions there are. (Hudman, 1980) As well, variables from the survey targeted for this research include several composite scales developed ad hoc from the attitude items and one additional variable measuring perceptions of personal benefit from tourism. The variables are composed of eleven items that measure resident's opinions about negative impacts of tourism; twelve items that measure residents' opinions about the positive impacts of tourism; two items that measure perceived personal benefit from tourism; eight items that measure support for (Abram, 1998) tourism development; and one item that measures residents' opinions about tourism planning Five point scales are used for each of the items. Basic demographics are also indicated from the respondents, including age, income, gender, education, length of residence in the community, and whether the respondents lived in the community as a child. Conclusion: The objectives, justification and methods for the study have been defined. In conclusion, to the study when the data is collected the next and final step would be to determine an application for the data and the results. In this study, the application of the data can be used to answer the three research questions that have been identified as central to this research. The goal of the data collected is to answer the following: 1) did personal characteristics affect perception of the impact of tourism when controlling for personal benefit from tourism; 2) did the extent to which one benefited personally from tourism development impact perceived positive impacts of tourism, perceived negative impacts of tourism and support for additional tourism; and did the extent to which one benefited personally from tourism development, perceived positive impacts of tourism, and perceived negative impacts of tourism affect support for additional tourism; and 3) what variables contributed to support for tourism planning References Abram, Simone, Jacqueline Waldren, and Don V. L. Macleod. 1997. Tourists and Tourism: Identifying with People and Places. New York: Berg. Andereck, K.L. (1995). 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