Events and Tourism Development within a Local Community: The Case of Winchester (UK)

Hugues Séraphin, Marco Platania, Paul Spencer and Giuseppe Modica
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Hugues Séraphin: Business School, University of Winchester, Winchester SO22 4NR, UK
Paul Spencer: Faculty of Arts, University of Winchester, Winchester SO22 4NR, UK
Giuseppe Modica: Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Località Feo di Vito, I-89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-23

Abstract: Tourism as an industry has many kinds of impacts on destinations and their communities. The presence of tourism could create the conditions for an economic development but in the same way produce negative effect (crowding out) and externalities (the Janus-face character). Between the different actors inside the tourist destination, there are the local community which could endure the pressure of tourism. In some cases, this pressure reduces the wellbeing of the residents. The present research paper focuses on how activities like events and tourism impact on community well-being. Winchester (England), a Special Interest Tourism and Event (SITE), is used as a case study. The data are collected using an on-line interview and they are elaborated using multivariate techniques and ordinal regression analysis. The results of the study reveal a close relation between the level of happiness of the local residents and their perception of the tourism industry and event development. Local residents in Winchester are perceiving the tourism industry and events rather positively as they believe it supports their culture and the local economy and job in particular. Our first overall conclusion is that there is a relationship between the residents’ happiness and tourism/event perception. Moreover, our findings support what claimed by several scholars that tourism specialisation improves the residents quality of life (QOL). The present study has not shown the direction of the influence but according to previous research it is the level of happiness of the local residents that determines their perception of the tourism industry and event development and not the other way around. The second finding of the study reveals that SITE destinations have a high potential in terms of contributing to the local residents’ happiness and subsequently visitors. Our third and final conclusion is that, when the benefits of tourism and events are higher than the cost, local residents and are likely to be supportive of the activity.

Keywords: wellbeing; happiness; tourism; events; Special Interest Tourism and Events (SITE); local community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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