Resident perceptions of a contentious tourism event

David B. Weaver and Laura J. Lawton

Tourism Management, 2013, vol. 37, issue C, 165-175

Abstract: Contentiously-themed events are a growing but under-researched element of the destination product mix. A survey of 880 adults on Australia's Gold Coast revealed diverse attitudes toward Schoolies Week, an annual high school-leaver celebration characterised by extensive partying and drinking. Most sampled residents are either ‘conditional supporters’ (33%) or ‘conditional opponents’ (34%) whose more complex assessments of costs and benefits, as per social exchange theory, include considerations of ‘non-costs’ and ‘non-benefits’. With regard to social representations, ‘opponents’ (18%) are more likely to be influenced by mass media, social circles and negative personal exposure, whilst ‘supporters’ (15%) are more likely to rely on their own and their children's schoolie experience. Foreign-born residents are less supportive of Schoolies Week, whilst females are disproportionately represented in the two conditional clusters. The results indicate several strategies for improving resident perceptions of this event.

Keywords: Schoolies Week; Events; Gold Coast; Cluster analysis; Resident perceptions; Social exchange theory; Social representations theory; Sustainable tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026151771300054X

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:37:y:2013:i:c:p:165-175

DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2013.01.017

Access Statistics for this article

Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan

More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().