Resumen de Designing and Testing a Guttman-Type Social Distance Scale for a Tourism Context
Research explaining host community residents' attitudes towards tourism receives continuous attention and its scope is broadening constantly. This study aims at contributing to the body of knowledge about the systematic variation and change of these attitudes. For this reason, the concept of social distance is introduced into the tourism context. As a first attempt, a Guttman-type scale with Thurstone characteristics was developed and purified in two countries: New Zealand and Austria. In both countries independent surveys were conducted to validate the scale formation. The contribution to explaining residents' attitudes was very fruitful in the Austrian example but less clear in the New Zealand example. Whether or not different stages of tourism development are responsible for these differences cannot be entirely concluded from only two surveys.
