Place Image of Residents: Role of Perception of Tourism Impacts

Place image Tourism impacts Perception Alanya Abstract The aim of this study is to determine the role of tourism impacts in the perception of the place image of local people in Alanya, a mature destination. There are many studies on the place image in the relevant literature. In these studies, residents’ place image perceptions were neglected. Unlike previous studies, this study deals with the effects of tourism and place image in terms of local people. In the present study, residents’ place image perceptions measured through validated previous developed scale. Convenience sampling method was used and 319 data collected from self-developed questionaires used for the analysis. Research model was tested via Partial Least Squared-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. Findings indicated that local people perception of tourism economic positively impact atmosphere and socio-economic environment/infrastucture dimensions of cognitive image. Local people perception of environmental impacts negatively affects natural environment. Moreover, perception of social and cultural impacts of tourism negatively affect cultural environment and infrastructure/socioeconomic environment dimensions of cognitive image. Lastly, local people perception of social and cultural impacts negatively affects the affective image.