Tourism Planning in Historic Districts: Attitudes Toward Tourism Development in Charleston

Abstract

In the last 30 years, community perceptions of negative impacts from tourism have encouraged research from several different fields into community attitudes, with the goal of overcoming opposition to tourism development. Drawing on a study of Charleston, SC, this article explores the relationships between community attachment, existing through such bonds as friendship and kinship, and resident attitudes toward tourism development. We studied Charleston to understand the differences in attitude toward tourism development among its neighborhoods, based on community attachment variables, and to explore the role of community attachment in predicting these attitudes, especially regarding residents of historic residential districts. This research has implications for tourism planning in Charleston and other tourism cities with historic residential districts.