Influence of values on residents' attitudes toward tourism

Personally held values play a fundamental role in explaining human actions. Research in both psychology and sociology suggest that such values underlie human behavior and actions. This article highlights the usefulness of personal values in explaining residents' attitudes toward tourism. It is argued that values are major determinants of attitudes and consequent support for the industry. The means-end-chain (MEC) is proposed as the theoretical base of the study. The laddering technique, which is often used to operationalize MEC, is also discussed. Through the laddering interviews, a "mental map" linking the attributes of tourism to the benefits or consequences of experiencing tourism and the personal values it satisfies can be developed. This process results in a better understanding of community attitude toward the industry. This study provides a theoretical (MEC) as well as a methodological (laddering) contribution to the literature on residents' attitude toward tourism. It also contributes to the limited number of studies discussing the influence of values on host behavior toward the tourism industry. Though value research together with laddering and MEC are not new to tourism, they can be considered new contributions to host attitudinal research.