An analysis of tourist’s perceptions toward tourism development: Study of cold desert destination, India

Abstract

Tourism impacts on society are complex and mixed. However, they are vital to diverse societies, clusters, and individuals dependent upon their morals, attitudes, and resources existing for tourism development. Increasing tourism also brings many problems. Hence, tourist experience is fundamental for destination image and development. This research examines tourist perceptions and attitudes toward tourism impacts in Chitkul, Kalpa, and Nako in Kinnaur. Random sampling has been used to measure tourist responses on a range of indicators related to tourism development. Likert scale responses were analyzed using factor analysis, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U-test, Kolmogorov test, and descriptive statistics. The results confirmed that tourists do not perceive any type of pollution or societal barriers. They observed that natural magnetism and the socio-cultural milieu of the destination is what attracts tourists. However, tourists are not satisfied with ‘networking services’, ‘organization efforts’, ‘supplementary conveniences’, and ‘carriage concerns’ at selected destinations in Kinnaur. Moreover, Chitkul emerged as the top tourist destination in Kinnaur. Since the destination would emerge as a hub of tourist activities shortly considering the congestion and exploitation of nearby tourist destinations at Kulu-Manali-Rohtang in Beas Valley. Hence, the assessment of tourist perceptions can be used as an indicator of tourism destination competitiveness and can assist in developing appropriate tourism policies and infrastructure upgrades.

Keywords

Cold desert / Kinnaur / Tourist perceptions / Factor analysis / ANOVA / Kolmogorov-Smirnov test

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge the team that helped to conduct the field survey in adverse climatic conditions at cold desert destinations. We are also thankful for the ICSSR. The authors sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers for critical comments and constructive suggestions that have significantly improved this manuscript.

References

[1] Andereck, K.L., 2009. Tourists’ perceptions of environmentally responsible innovations at tourism businesses. J. Sustain. Tour. 17 (4), 489-499.

[2] Brida, J.G., Chiappa, G., Meleddu, M., 2012. Cruise tourism externalities and residents’ support: A generalized ordered logit analysis. Economics. 5, 201240.

[3] Burgess, S.M., Steenkamp, J.B.E. M., 2006. Marketing renaissance: How to research in emerging markets advances marketing science and practice. Int. J. Res. Mark. 23, 337-356.

[4] Chebli, A., Othmani, M.C., Said, F.B., 2020. Market segmentation in urban tourism: Exploring the influence of personal factors on tourists’ perception. J. Tour. Serv. 20 (11), 74-108.

[5] Chheang, V., 2011. Angkor heritage tourism and tourist perceptions. Tourismos. 6 (2), 213-240.

[6] Chou, C.P., Bentler, P.M., 1995. Estimates and tests in structural equation modeling. In: Hoyle, R.H. (Ed.), Structural Equation Modeling: Concepts, Issues and Applications. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 37-55.

[7] Cina, V., Botha, C., 2004. Motivational factors of local residents to attend the Aardklop national arts festival. Event Manag. 8 (4), 213-222.

[8] Cohen, E., 1972. Towards a sociology of international tourism. Soc. Res. 39, 164-182.

[9] De Freitas, C., 2005. The climate-tourism relationship and its relevance to climate change impact assessment. In: Hall C.M., Higham J. (Eds.), Tourism, Recreation and Climate Chang. Channel View Publications, Bristol, pp. 29-43.

[10] Dey, P., Uddin, S., Hasan, K., 2013. Tourists’ perception towards Cox’s bazar sea beach in Bangladesh as a tourist destination. Asian Bus. Rev. 2 (1), 54-60.

[11] District Census Handbook, 2011. Directorate of Census Operation, Himachal Pradesh. Duman, T., Mattila, A.S., 2005. The role of affective factors on perceived cruise vacation value. Tour. Manag. 26, 311-323.

[12] Elena, D.D., Muresan, I., Chiciudean, G., Harun, R., 2017. An understanding of tourists’ perception about seaside hotels. Pro-Environment 10, 261-266.

[13] Ezeuduji, I.O., Mhlongo, P.S., 2019. Tourists’ perceptions of a destination brand Image: KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Afr. J. Hosp. Tour. Leis. 8 (4), 1-11.

[14] Faulkner, B., Tideswell, C., 1997. A framework for monitoring the community impacts of tourism. J. Sustain. Tour. 5 (1), 2-28.

[15] Garavaglia, V., Diolaiuti, G., Smiraglia, C., Pasquale, V., Pelfini, M., 2012. Evaluating tourist perception of environmental changes as a contribution to managing natural resources in glacierized areas: A case study of the Forni Glacier (Stelvio National Park, Italian Alps). Environ. Manag. 50 (6), 1125-1138.

[16] Giannakopoulou, S., Kaliampakos, D., 2016. Protection of architectural heritage: Attitudes of local residents and visitors in Sirako. Greece. J. Mt. Sci. 13 (3), 424-439.

[17] Gilg, A., Barr, S., Ford, N., 2005. Green consumption or sustainable lifestyles? Identifying the sustainable consumer. Futures 37 (6), 481-504.

[18] Gössling, S., Hall, C.M., 2006. Uncertainties in predicting tourist flows under scenarios of climate change. Clim. Change 79 (3-4), 163-173.

[19] Gössling, S., Scott, D., Hall, C.M., Ceron, J.P., Dubois, G., 2012. Consumer behaviour and demand response of tourists to climate change. Ann. Tour. Res. 39 (1), 36-58.

[20] Gnanapala, W.K.A., 2015. Tourist’s perception and satisfaction: Implications for destination management. Am. J. Mark. Res. 1 (1), 7-19.

[21] Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., Black, W.C., 1998. Multivariate data analysis. Prentice Ha 11 International, Inc., NJ.

[22] Haley, A.J., Snaith, T., Miller, G., 2005. The social impacts of tourism: A case study of Bath, UK. Ann. Tour. Res. 32 (3), 647-668.

[23] Hall, C.M., 2005. Tourism: Rethinking the Social Science of Mobility. Pearson Education, Harlow.

[24] Haralambopoulos, N., Pizam, A., 1996. Perceived impacts of tourism: The case of Samos. Ann. Tour. Res. 23, 503-526.

[25] Helen, O.O., Praise, E.E., 2020. Assessment of tourists’ perception and satisfaction in Agodi Park and gardens Ibadan as a nature-based tourism attraction. Granthaalayah. 8 (7), 144-159.

[26] Higham, J.E., Cohen, S.A., 2011. Canary in the coalmine: Norwegian attitudes towards climate change and extreme longhaul air travel to Aotearoa/New Zealand. Tour. Manag. 32 (1), 98-105.

[27] Holloway, J.C., Humphreys, C., Davidson, R., 2009. The Business of Tourism. Pearson, London.

[28] Hritz, N., Ross, C., 2010. The perceived impacts of sport tourism: An urban host community perspective. J. Sport Manag. 24 (2), 119-138.

[29] Jangra, R., Kaushik, S.P., 2018. Analysis of trends and seasonality in the tourism industry: The case of a cold desert destination, Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh. Afr. J. Hosp. Tour. Leis. 7 (1), 1-16.

[30] Jangra, R., Kaushik, S.P., 2018. Host community attitudes toward tourism impacts: Study of high altitude tourist destination, Himalaya. Int. J. Acad. Res. Dev. 3 (2), 273-280.

[31] Joo, D., Cho, H., Woosnam, K.M., 2019. Exploring tourists’ perceptions of tourism impacts. Tour. Manag. Perspect. 31, 231-235.

[32] Kaiser, H.F., 1974. An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika 39 (1), 31-36.

[33] Karnchanan, P., 2011. Ph.D. thesis. University Utara, Malaysia.

[34] Kim, W., Jun, H.M., Walker, M., Drane, D., 2015. Evaluating the perceived social impacts of hosting large-scale sport tourism events: SCALE development and validation. Tour. Manag. 48, 21-32.

[35] Little, T.D., Lindenberger, U., Nesselroade, J.R., 1999. On selecting indicators for multivariate measurement and modeling with latent variables: When “good ”indicators are bad and “bad ”indicators are good. Psychol. Methods. 4 (2), 192-211.

[36] Mitchell, V.W., Greatorex, M., 1993. Risk perception and reduction in the purchase of consumer services. Serv. Ind. J. 13, 179-200.

[37] Nössing, L., Forti, S., 2016. Important geosites and parks in the UNESCO world heritage site of the dolomites. Boletín Geológico y Minero. 127 (2/3), 693-702. (in Spanish)

[38] Nunnally, J.C., 1975. Psychometric theory-25 years ago and now. Educ. Researcher. 4 (10), 7-21.

[39] Nunnally, J., Bernstein, I., 1994. Psychometric Theory, 3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, USA.

[40] Petrevska, B., 2019. Tourists’ perception: The case of Ohrid, Macedonia. Acta Geobalcanica 5 (2), 75-84.

[41] Petrosillo, I., Zurlini, G., Grato, E., Zaccarelli, N., 2006. Indicating fragility of socio-ecological tourism-based systems. Ecol. Indic. 6 (1), 104-113.

[42] Quintana, V.M., 2017. El turismo de naturaleza: UN product turístico sostenible. Arbor. 193 (785).(in Spainish)

[43] Ramdas, M., Mohamed, B., 2017. Perceptions of visitors and residents on impact of tourism activities towards quality of water in Redang and Perhentian Islands, Malaysia. Asian J. Tech. Vocat. Educ. Train. 2, 1-7.

[44] Richardson, R.B., Loomis, J.B., 2005. Effects of climate change on tourism demand and benefits in alpine areas. In: Hall C.M., Higham J. (Eds.), Tourism, Recreation and Climate Chang. Channel View Publications, Bristol, pp. 164-180.

[45] Scott, D., Hall, C. M., and Gössling, S., 2012. Tourism and Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation. Routledge, London.

[46] Scott, D., Wall, G., McBoyle, G., 2005. The evolution of the climate change issue in the tourism sector. In: Hall, C.M., Higham, J. (Eds.), Tourism, Recreation and Climate Chang. Channel View Publications, Bristol, pp. 44-60.

[47] Singla, M., 2014. A case study on socio-cultural impacts of tourism in the city of Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. J. Bus. Manag. Soc. Sci. Res. 2, 2319-5614.

[48] Strobl, A., Teichmann, K., Peters, M., 2015. Do mountain tourists demand ecotourism? Examining mode rating influences in an Alpine tourism context. Tourism 63 (3), 383-398.

[49] Suh, Y.K., McAvoy, L., 2005. Preferences and trip expenditures-a conjoint analysis of visitors to Seoul, Korea. Tour. Manag. 26, 325-333.

[50] Sumaco, F.T., Richardson, S., 2011. An analysis on international tourists’ perceptions towards destination branding:“Visit Indonesia 2008 ”marketing campaign. The 2 nd International Research Symposium in Service Management.

[51] Tabachnick, B.G., Fidell, L.S., 2007. Using Multivariate Statistics, 5th Ed. Pearson, Boston.

[52] Tichaawa, T.M., Mhlanga, O., 2015. Resident’s perceptions towards the impacts of tourism development : The case of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Afr. J. Hosp. Tour. Leis. 4 (1).

[53] Tosun, C., 2002. Host perceptions of impacts: A comparative tourism study. Ann. Tour. Res. 29 (1), 231-253.

[54] Türker, N., Oztürk, S., 2013. Perceptions of residents towards the impacts of tourism in the Küre mountains faculty of economics and administrative sciences. Int. J. Bus. Soc. Sci. 4 (2), 45-56.

[55] UNESCO, 2015. World heritage sites. http://whc.unesco.org. (accessed on 20th June, 2018).

[56] UNWTO, 2019. UNWTO Tourism Highlights: 2019. UNWTO, 2015. UNWTO Tourism Highlights: 2015. (accessed on 20th June, 2018).

[57] Velicer, W.F., Fava, J.L., 1998. Effects of variable and subject sampling on factor pattern recovery. Psychol. Methods. 3 (2), 231-251.

[58] Wang, Y., Pfister, R.E., Morais, D.B., 2007. Resident’s attitudes toward tourism development: A case study of Washington, NC. In:Proceedings of the 2006 Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium, pp. 411-418.

[59] Weaver, D., Lawton, L., 2010. Tourism Management, 4th ed. John Wiley Sons Australia, Milton, Australia.

[60] Wijethunga, W., Warnakulasooriya, B., 2014. Destination image perception of international tourists: The case of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination. In:Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Business Management. Colombo.

[61] Zhao, S., Timothy, D.J., 2017. Tourist’s consumption and perceptions of red heritage. Ann. Tour. Res. 63, 97-111.