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Measuring Stakeholder Perspectives on Environmental and Community Stability in a Tourism‐Dependent Economy
Author(s) -
Carr Liam M.,
Liu Daniel Y.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.155
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1522-1970
pISSN - 1099-2340
DOI - 10.1002/jtr.2084
Subject(s) - tourism , stakeholder , environmental policy , environmental degradation , economy , economics , process (computing) , business , environmental resource management , economic system , political science , ecology , management , computer science , law , biology , operating system
Tourism is promoted as an environmentally beneficial activity for Caribbean economies. Yet degradation still occurs and more integrated policy approaches are needed. Using Q‐methodology within a social‐ecological system (SES) framework, we quantified the importance of various policy issues to stakeholders in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, where tourism produces 77% of its GDP. Stakeholders agree Providenciales' economy benefits from a healthy marine environment, but disagree over which SES drivers are functionally important. Our results show that Q‐methodology is a robust tool for informing the policy‐making process and quantifying stakeholder views in a tourism‐dependent economy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.