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| A STUDY ON DIFFERENCES OF SENSE OF PLACE BETWEEN TOURISTS AND LOCALS: A CASE STUDY OF TUNXI OLD STREET, HUANGSHAN |
| QIU Hui1, ZHOU Qiang2, ZHAO Ning-xi3, CHENG Lin1 |
1. School of Tourism, Huangshan College, Huangshan 245021, China;
2. Jiangsu Tourism Bureau, Nanjing 210003, China;
3. School of Geographic and Oceanographic Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China |
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Abstract While the rapid development of tourism industry brings considerable income for the locals, it also causes more and more conflicts between local people and tourists. However, there exists a close relationship between the emerging conflicts and tourists and locals' cognition and emotion of the destination. The great impacts of tourism development are mainly reflected in the differences of sense of place between tourists and locals. This paper selects the Tunxi Old Street as the study area, and designs the questionnaire from three dimensions: place cognition; place attachment and place behavioral intension. The three parts are subdivided into 12 factors: 1) self pole; 2) self-others pole; 3) others pole; 4) other-environment pole; 5) environment pole; 6) environment-self pole; 7) place identity; 8 ) place dependence; 9) use of ancient architecture; 10) life style; 11) space utilization; and 12) atmosphere. Under the framework of measuring system, a questionnaire survey had been carried out aiming to tourists and locals in Tunxi Old Street, on a sample pool of 450 representative tourists and 229 locals to carry out a comparative analysis of behavioral differences between tourists and local people. The study three key finds. Firstly, at the place cognition level, tourists pay more attention to destination and their interaction, while residents are more concerned about the "self" and "environment" aspects. This difference is largely due to the different cognitive styles of the streets. Secondly, at the place attachment level, tourists have a more great sense of place attachment than the local residents. This finding is contrary to the usual research findings. Because commercial is the street's core cultural, so residents are more concerned about that if the street can bring more economic profits for them. Thirdly, at the place behavioral intension level, though both are in favor of the street protection, there is a significant difference as to the "modernization" factor. This difference is largely caused by their different demand of life.
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Received: 02 September 2011
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2012, Vol. 27 
