The Mediating Effects of Community Support For Sustainable Tourism,Community Attachment,Involvement,and Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

Community attachment is a key factor for both the perceptions and the attitudes of residents including the tourism activities within it. Besides, residents’ participation in the tourism development process influences their support for the development of tourism activities. Finally, the environmental attitudes of residents are essential for the sustainability of natural resources. A total of 722 structured questionnaires to residents of the city of Santiago de los Caballeros gathered information about community attachment, environmental activity, support for tourism, perceptions, and involvement toward the natural resources of the Yaque del Norte River (the longest of the Dominican Republic). The results, using partial least squares, showed the relevant relations between the variables researched and offer a new framework on which to reflect, for the assessment of the relations between community attachment and support for sustainable tourism, together with the involvement and the attitudes of the community.

Keywords

community attachment environmental attitudes residents tourism

Introduction

Tourism is an industry in constant growth that can promote job creation, generates income for the local community, leads to cultural exchange, and facilitates improvements of infrastructure. It likewise has some negative impacts, from the economic, cultural, social, and environmental viewpoints (Choi & Sirakaya, 2005), altering and even destroying local communities. It is therefore widely accepted that tourism development generates economic, social, and environmental benefits for the destinations, at the same time as involving various costs, which can affect the livelihood of the host community (Andereck & Nyaupane, 2011).

Grasping an awareness of the existence of the negative perceptions related to the development of tourism in a community has meant that greater attention is paid to the notion of sustainable tourism development, reclaiming the participation of residents in the process of tourism development (Choi & Sirakaya, 2005; Hung et al., 2011). In this way, the degree to which the desires of the residents are satisfied determines their receptivity, both toward tourism development and toward the tourists themselves (Davis et al., 1988). A situation that is explained by the viewpoints of the host community. Meaningful policies to minimize the negative impacts of the tourism industry in the community may be undertaken, in so far as those views are taken into consideration (Lankford & Howard, 1994).

The concept of sustainable tourism has different meanings for different interest groups at a destination and those meanings are subject to individual and collective characteristics such as culture, education, organizational affiliation, and political participation (Lu & Nepal, 2009). Over recent years, many definitions of sustainable tourism have been given, although it appears that there is a consensus in relation to the concept coined by OMT-PNUMA (2005, p. 12): “Tourism that takes into account its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts attending to the needs of the visitors, industry, the environment, and the communities that welcome the tourists.”

The debate over the sustainability of tourism has grown in importance over past decades. This growing debate might, among other reasons, be due to the fact that public administrations are increasingly aware of the limits to the use of natural and cultural resources, as well as the negative impact that tourism activity can generate in people and the environment (Amado dos Santos et al., 2017).

The perceptions that residents hold of the impacts of tourism are a relevant topic for destinations that have received considerable attention in the literature on tourism. Their perceptions help create an attitude toward touristic activity. An attitude that extends support to the development of tourism in an area. Enjoying the support of the community is essential to be able to extract the positive impacts of that activity (Jurowski & Gursoy, 2004; Yoon et al., 2001). Residents support the development of tourism, because they perceive that the benefits will be much higher than the costs (Lee, 2013), and therefore, the most positive perceptions of the residents will stimulate greater support for prospective developments (Lee & Jan, 2019). This support is even greater in sustainable tourism activities, because the residents perceive that the activity helps conserve natural resources and serves as a complement to the economy of the area (Nunkoo & Ramkissoon, 2010; Villanueva-Álvaro et al., 2017). Tourism is therefore considered an effective method for poverty reduction in some communities (Croes, 2014). Nevertheless, the development of certain touristic activities can have negative consequences on the environment (Choi & Sirakaya, 2005). As a consequence, there are certain factors that mediate between the attitudes of the residents of an area and the support that they give to touristic activities.

In this work, we will focus on the role that is played by the participation of people in the activities and resources of their community with regard to sustainable tourism activity. Both factors influence support for tourism, as the local community can be more favorable toward the exploitation of natural resources for the development of a sustainable activity, because they are not endangered by it (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999).

Therefore, the objective of this investigation is to analyze community support for sustainable tourism through environmental attitudes, involvement, and attachment to a natural tourism resource. The question under investigation in this study is how community attachment and involvement with the natural resource will influence the relation between the environmental attitudes of residents and their support for sustainable tourism. As a consequence, the investigation attempts to determine the mediating roles of those two preceding variables (attachment and involvement) on the effects of the environmental attitude toward support for sustainable tourism. The results of this study will be useful for managers and administrators of natural resources, allowing them to develop sustainable strategies for the exploitation of the resource. This approach is relevant due to the importance of analyzing the perceptions of residents and their support for sustainable tourism, above all, when speaking of resources.

Literature Review

The review of the literature is organized into three subsections: (a) environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism; (b) the mediating role of community attachment and support for sustainable tourism; and (c) the mediating role of involvement with the natural resource and support for sustainable tourism.

Environmental Attitude and Support for Sustainable Tourism

An environmental attitude may be defined as a psychological tendency expressed through the evaluation of the natural environment with some degree of favor or otherwise (Vicente-Molina et al., 2013). On that point, the attitude of the community toward the development of touristic activity has been widely studied in the previous literature (Anastasiadou, 2008; Ap, 1992; Diedrich & García-Buades, 2009; Dincǎ et al., 2014; Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004; Nguyen et al., 2019; Tosun, 2002; Trawöger, 2014; Zehrer & Hallmann, 2015).

Sustainable development is a goal for most countries that use tourism as an economic motor (Ellis & Sheridan, 2014; Nguyen et al., 2019); however, maintaining a balance between the economic exploitation of natural resources and their protection is a monumental challenge (Nguyen et al., 2019). Facing up to that challenge, governmental agencies at the destination are key to ensuring that sustainable tourism is the activity that achieves such a balance, through planning and acceptable decision-making and community participation (Nguyen et al., 2019). Previous studies have, therefore, have indicated that support for tourism among residents is shaped by their environmental attitudes. Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2010) found that residents with ecocentric attitudes supported policies that can lead to the preservation of natural resources and the environment while those that have an anthropocentric attitude favor the transformation of the environment to satisfy human needs (Jones et al., 2000).

Tourism can be a reason to protect and to conserve natural resources or it can damage and even destroy them, as they are often developed in attractive yet fragile environments (Almeida et al., 2015). Local residents also identify this duality of the environmental impact in their community: positive and negative (Yoon et al., 2001). Thus, most of the tourism-related literature on the attitudes of residents toward environmental problems has centered on the perspectives of residents toward the environmental impact of tourism (Nicholas et al., 2009), due to the participation of the community that is considered key for sustainable development (Byrd, 2007; Ioannides, 1995; Nguyen et al., 2019; Timur & Getz, 2008). Along the same lines, Williams and Lawson (2001) affirmed the existence of groups of residents with significant environmental concerns and strongly ingrained negative perceptions toward tourism. On this point, Nicholas et al. (2009) observed that the attitudes of residents depended on the environmental impacts perceived by tourism and highlighted a series of intervening factors, such as the degree and the nature of tourism development and the level of control.

Jurowski et al. (1997) affirmed that attitudes toward the conservation of the environment and nature influence the way in which residents perceive the tourism-related economic, social, and environmental impacts. Thus, there are studies (Gursoy et al., 2002; Nicholas et al., 2009) that have analyzed the perceived benefits and costs as variables that mediate between support for tourism development and environmental attitude, given that economic, sociocultural, and environmental compensations, in so far as the residents perceive them as such, contribute to determining their support for the development of tourism (Jurowski & Gursoy, 2004; Yoon et al., 2001).

Information on the attitudes of residents toward the environment is important for the sustainability of protected areas, given the dual responsibility related to their management, implying both the conservation of natural resources and the provision of leisure activities (Nicholas et al., 2009). According to Nicholas et al. (2009), information on the attitudes of residents toward the environment is of special importance for sustainability, for which reason destination managers should clearly understand the values and the perceptions of the community, to be able to integrate community members in the decision-making process and to promote their participation, both for the environmental protection of the touristic area and for its active management.

In short, environmental activities will directly influence support for the development of sustainable tourism (Nicholas et al., 2009), especially where residents value the fact that tourism helps to conserve natural resources (Andereck & Nyaupane, 2011).

All of the above therefore lends support to the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1₀: The environmental attitudes of the residents will not influence support for sustainable tourism.

Hypothesis 1: The environmental attitudes of the residents will influence support for sustainable tourism.

The Mediating Role of Community Attachment and Support for Sustainable Tourism

Community attachment can be defined as the social participation of the individual and integration in the life of the community that reflects an affective or emotional link between the individual and a specific community (McCool & Martin, 1994) and therefore reflects the roots of the individual in that community and a feeling of belonging to it (Kasarda & Janowitz, 1974). If we are to say that an individual shows attachment toward the community, then the individual must appreciate, value, remain loyal toward, and identify with the place. This concept of community attachment has been applied in many different ways, from the place of birth to the number of years of residence in the community (Deery et al., 2012).

Although the relation between the attachment of residents to the community and their support for tourism development has yet to be clearly established in the scientific literature, some studies have indicated that community attachment affects support for tourism development in a direct and significant manner (Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004; Nicholas et al., 2009) although, as we said, other authors (Choi & Murray, 2010; Gursoy et al., 2002) have found no significance in that relation. It has also been proposed that the benefits and costs that tourists perceive could be mediating variables in the relation between community attachment and support for touristic development (Gursoy et al., 2002; Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004; Lee, 2013; Nicholas et al., 2009).

Gursoy and Rutherford (2004) found that the state of the local economy was likely to mediate the influence of community attachment and community concern over the positive and negative impacts of touristic activity. These authors suggested that the stronger the attachment of the residents, the greater the likelihood that they would support sustainable tourism development and the lesser the likelihood that they would be affected by social costs, in such a way that, if the potential for economic earnings is considerable, then the communities might be willing to involve themselves in the process of tourism exchange. The perceived benefits, therefore, play a partial mediating role between community attachment and its support for tourism development (Lee, 2013).

Community attachment is a key factor in the influence of perceptions and attitudes that residents have toward the changes or the development of their community, due to the relation between community attachment, resident attitudes, and the natural landscapes that surround a community can influence the perceptions of the residents of the community and the development of touristic activity (Nicholas et al., 2009). The contribution and the commitment of all the stakeholders is fundamental to guarantee that the benefits derived from tourism are shared by all the residents and that the general quality of life of the community improves. By doing so, the local community can be motivated to act as guardians, protecting indigenous resources and values (Hatipoglu et al., 2016).

Látková and Vogt (2012) found a positive and significant relation between the attachment of the community and the positive perception of residents, and a nonsignificant relation between community attachment and negative perceptions. Jaafar et al. (2015) identified significant positive effects for the attachment of the community and the feeling of belonging, in both the positive and the negative perceptions of residents toward the proposal to list the Valley of Lenggong (Malaysia) as a World Heritage Site.

The literature on the conservation of natural resources based on the community reveals a generalized concern in favor of small cohesive groups that use locally developed regulations to manage the resources in a sustainable and equitable manner (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999). It has also been demonstrated that there is a relation between attachment to the place and perceptions, linking the feeling of belonging to a place with the perceptions of the natural landscape (Davenport & Anderson, 2005). In this way, the perception of natural areas among local communities directly affects their attitudes and can influence collective strategies for the use of the natural resources (Hernández-Ramírez et al., 2008).

The above leads us to propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2₀: Community attachment will not mediate the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism.

Hypothesis 2: Community attachment will mediate the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism.

The Mediating Role of Involvement With the Natural Resource and Support for Sustainable Tourism

Community involvement, understood as the degree to which residents are involved in sharing aspects of their lives with their communities (Lee, 2013), can be understood as a critical factor in the development of community tourism (Jones, 2005; Nicholas et al., 2009), because the value of a community may be increased through the promotion of a form of tourism that generates positive effects and that reduces negative effects (Jamal & Getz, 1995). The support of residents for touristic development has therefore been evaluated, centering on such aspects as demographic factors (Vargas-Sánchez et al., 2009), community attachment (Lee, 2013), tourism planning (Choi & Murray, 2010), environmental sustainability (Gursoy et al., 2002), and the state of touristic development (Lundberg, 2015).

Hatipoglu et al. (2016) proposed that institutional frameworks permit multiple levels of participation and decision-taking among the stakeholders of the destination, including residents. However, those systems can generate problems when they enter into confrontation with the realities of the institutional structure at the destination and the internal dynamic of the community (Hatipoglu et al., 2016). Unfortunately, the lack of a shared vision among stakeholders as well as clear leadership and a long-term strategy at the destination are factors that act as barriers to collaborative planning in the process of developing touristic activities (Ladkin & Bertramini, 2002). Divergences due to opposing perceptions over the benefits/harm that tourism can bring to the community (Sautter & Leisen, 1999).

Participation in the tourism development process can improve the awareness of residents with regard to the benefits and the costs of tourism, affecting their support for the development of tourism (Nguyen et al., 2019; Rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). Thus, the participation of the local community offers new opportunities to residents, to mobilize their capabilities as social actors, rather than as passive subjects, so that they can make decisions and take control over the activities that affect their lives (Thongma et al., 2011), benefiting the local community and increasing their respect for their style of life and their traditional values (Lee & Jan, 2019; Mitchell & Reid, 2001).

The identity of a place, the sense of community, and social capital are critical parts of the transactions between people and their environment that promote the development of the community in all of its physical, social, political, and economic aspects. It is due to the affective bonds with places that can help inspire action, because people are motivated to search for, to remain in, to protect, and to improve the places that are meaningful to them. These bonds therefore encourage their involvement, both in the process of improving their community and in local planning processes (Manzo & Perkins, 2006).

Following all of above, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 3₀: Involvement in the management of the natural resource will not mediate the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism.

Hypothesis 3: Involvement in the management of the natural resource will mediate the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism.

Methodology

Data collection was through the administration of a survey in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros (Dominican Republic), with the purpose of completing the empirical analysis of the proposed hypotheses. The zones bordering on the Yaque del Norte River, the longest river in the country, were selected. The river is a significant natural resource that supplies large volumes of water to the center and to the north of the country. It is considered a valuable resource for the development of leisure and tourism activities and it is jointly administered by several central government agencies (Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, and the National Institution of Hydraulic Resources) and by the environmental management departments of the municipal councils for the areas through which it flows. The city of Santiago de los Caballeros is the one that organizes the highest number of leisure activities around the Yaque River. It is a key element for the new tourism strategies promoted by the local government of the city and the central government of the Dominican Republic, the objective of which is to carry out leisure and tourism activities connected with the river.

A structured questionnaire with 28 questions was designed, based on preexisting (5-point Likert-type) scales in English adapted to the research context (Table 1). The items were verified by a researcher, a specialist in tourism, to guarantee their validity, and subsequently, by an administrator of tourism resources. Two different bilingual translators completed the process of translating the items into Spanish in three stages, with the purpose of guaranteeing significant equivalences (in meaning, nuance and connotation): (1) a first translator translated the original version into Spanish, (2) the second translator completed an inverse translation of the Spanish version into English, and (3) both versions in English were compared to identify discrepancies (McGorry, 2000). On the basis of that process, the final draft of the questionnaire was selected, having previously been administered to 70 students from the Universidad Tecnológica de Santiago (Santiago de los Caballeros), with the purpose of analyzing such aspects as the comprehensibility of the items, clarity of writing, fluency of presentation, and the survey response time. The final items used in the investigation may be seen in Table 1.

Table 1

Individual Reliability of the Items and Construct Reliability

Construct or Indicator	Individual Reliability			Composite Reliability
Construct or Indicator	(λ)	t (p value)	(λ²)	α	ρc	ρ_A	AVE
Environmental attitude (adapted from Nicholas & Thapa, 2010)				0.811	0.876	0.813	0.638
Cultural and natural diversity should be valued and protected	0.799	34.794 (.000)	0.639
Nowadays, the community environment should be protected	0.820	36.949 (.000)	0.672
The community environment should be protected in the future	0.783	28.675 (.000)	0.613
Larger areas of public land should be protected	0.793	27.722 (.000)	0.629
Community attachment (adapted from Gursoy et al., 2010, and Lee, 2013)				0.842	0.880	0.850	0.513
It is important to maintain the traditions of Santiago de los Caballeros	0.699	26.606 (.000)	0.489
Santiago de los Caballeros is part of me	0.785	39.987 (.000)	0.616
I feel an emotional attachment toward Santiago de los Caballeros	0.727	25.936 (.000)	0.528
What happens in Santiago de los Caballeros is important for me	0.755	32.467 (.000)	0.570
I feel at home in Santiago de los Caballeros	0.760	31.477 (.000)	0.578
I would feel very sad if I had to abandon Santiago	0.644	23.036 (.000)	0.415
I feel satisfied with Santiago de los Caballeros	0.628	19.391 (.000)	0.394
Support for sustainable tourism (adapted from Nicholas & Thapa, 2010)				0.850	0.886	0.853	0.528
I think that tourism should be promoted . . .
The development of Santiago de los Caballeros	0.699	24.108 (.000)	0.489
Local participation in tourism planning and development	0.794	42.402 (.000)	0.631
Cultural exchanges between local residents and visitors	0.711	22.861 (.000)	0.505
Cooperation and unity in touristic planning and development	0.767	31.478 (.000)	0.589
Standardized environmental legislation to reduce the negative impacts of tourism	0.676	23.402 (.000)	0.457
The promotion of environmental conservation and education	0.752	32.176 (.000)	0.566
The creation of new touristic attractions	0.676	20.437 (.000)	0.457
Involvement with the natural resource (adapted from Nicholas & Thapa, 2010)				0.719	0.876	0.876	0.780
My degree of involvement with the management of the tourism resource is high	0.905	6.316 (.000)	0.819
My degree of involvement in the decision-making process on the tourism resource is high	0.860	5.976 (.000)	0.740

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The population under study were residents of the city of Santiago de los Caballeros (Dominican Republic). According to the most recent National Census of the Population and Homes (Censo de República Dominicana, 2010), there were 691,262 people registered on the census of the city of Santiago de los Caballeros. A total of 722 valid questionnaires were collected from personal interviews by trained interviewers. This number is over the optimal sample size for a simple random design and a finite population, with a sampling error of 3.65%, which guarantees that the results can be extrapolated to the whole population. The sample was balanced with regard to gender (50.6% women), in their majority between 26 and 44 years old (48%), 41.1% were students, and over half lived at home with three or four members (55.7%).

The SPSS v.24 statistical analysis program was used for the statistical analysis, both for the data tabulation and for the establishment of the sociodemographic profile, as well as for the initial analysis reliability through Cronbach’s alpha. Through that reliability test, all those items with a corrected item–total correlation lower than 0.3 (Norussis, 1993) were eliminated. Then, the proposed model was tested by employing the structural equation program based on partial least squares (PLS), with which the measurement model and the structural model were analyzed, as well as the predictive capacity of the proposed model.

The PLS-based programs have characteristics that differentiate them from other programs that are based on covariances (CB-SEM). Among those characteristics, it is worth highlighting that PLS imposes no assumptions of specific distributions for the different items, unlike, for example, normality, and there is no need for the observations to be independent from one another (Chin, 2010). Besides, the PLS technique avoids problems such as inadmissible solutions, and standardized loads of over 1, and negative estimations of the variances of the indicators (Fornell & Bookstein, 1982). It follows that PLS can be used to arrive at estimations of the models with estimates in Composite Mode A (reflective) and in Composite Mode B (training), without those operations implying any overidentification problem whatsoever (Chin, 2010).

When structural models are used to examine subtle relations between constructs, the definition of both Composite Mode A and Composite Mode B of the constructs is crucial, in order to measure the model. In the case of Mode A (latent) constructs, the indicators are a manifestation of the construct and, therefore, show its effects. These indicators constitute a representative set of all the possible elements within the conceptual domain of a construct (Diamantopoulos & Winklhofer, 2001). In turn, the indicators are the components in the Mode B constructs (aggregate, composite) that form or cause that construct and, therefore, all the dimensions should be measured to evaluate a Mode B construct. All the constructs were Mode A in the present investigation,

Results

This section is divided into two parts. In the first part, the testing of the measurement model is presented and, subsequently, the testing of the structural model.

Testing of the Measurement Model

In an initial approach, the individual reliability of the items was analyzed, the reliability of the construct, the convergent validity, and the discriminant validity for the Mode A composites. The individual reliability of the item is determined by the factor loads (λ) and the communality (λ²) associated with each indicator. In this sense, the associated loads have to present values higher than 0.707 (Carmines & Zeller, 1979), although this rule should not be so inflexible in the initial stages of the investigation, permitting values lower than this reference, but never lower than 0.4. Those values with a lower load must be eliminated from the model (Hair, Sarstedt, et al., 2011). Hence, only one item was eliminated from the scale Community attachment. Subsequently, in the testing phase of the reliability construct, all the measures presented values higher than the required minimums (Cronbach’s α ≥0.7, composite reliability, ρ_c, and the rho-a of Dijkstra-Henseler, ρ_A, ≥0.7; convergent validity, AVE, ≥0.5; Dijkstra & Henseler, 2015; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The results relating to the individual reliability of the items and of the construct are presented in Table 1.

Finally, with regard to the reliability construct, in order to test the extent to which the items have been correctly assigned (differences between constructs), we turned to an assessment of discriminant validity using the Fornell-Larcker criterion and the heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratio. Thus, the AVE square root of a given construct must be greater than the correlation that it has with any other construct, in order for it to have discriminant validity. The HTMT ratio is one of the most convincing measures when determining the existence or otherwise of discriminant validity (Henseler et al., 2015; Kline, 2011). To do so, the HTMT has to be between 0.85 and 0.90 (Gold et al., 2001). The data relating to discriminant validity are presented in Table 2.

Table 2

Discriminant Validity

	Environmental Attitude	Community Attachment	Support for Sustainable Tourism	Involvement With Natural Resource
Environmental Attitude	0.799	0.693	0.517	0.113
Community Attachment	0.588	0.716	0.445	0.081
Support for Sustainable Tourism	0.434	0.390	0.726	0.047
Involvement With Natural Resource	−0.084	−0.029	−0.034	0.883

Note: HTMT = heterotrait-monotrait. Light shade of gray = Fornell-Lacker criterion; darker shade of gray = HTMT ratio.

Evaluation of the Structural Model

Having confirmed the reliability and the validity of the Mode A composites of the model, the structural model was tested through a series of steps. The process of bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples was necessary to produce the standard errors and t values needed to evaluate the meaning of the path coefficients (Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011). The same was true of the confidence intervals of the values generated by the bootstrapping process. In accordance with Chin (2010), the percentile technique was employed. In view of the results reflected in Table 3, the model had predictive validity for both dependent variables. The redundancy index of the cross validation (Q2) for the endogenous variables was examined, in order to test its predictive capacity (Chin, 2010). In all cases, a value higher than zero was obtained.

Table 3

Effect of the Endogenous Variable

Effect of the Endogenous Variable	Direct Effect	t Value (p Value)	95% Percentile of the Confidence Interval	Explained Variance
Attachment (R² = 0.345/Q² = 0.161)
Attitude (a₁ = H2)	0.588***	14.326 (.000)	(0.505; 0.664) Sig.	34.56%
Involvement (R² = 0.007/Q² = 0.104)
Attitude (a₂ = H3)	−0.084*	2.064 (.039)	(−0.067; −0.001) Sig.	0.71%
Support (R² = 0.216/Q² = 0.004)
Attitude (c′ = H1)	0.312***	6.925 (.000)	(0.229; 0.403) Sig.	13.53%
Attachment (b₁ = H2)	0.206***	4.690 (.000)	(0.121; 0.293) Sig.	8.02%
Involvement (b₂ = H3)	−0.001 n.s.	0.029 (.097)	(−0.073; 0.077) n.s.	0.00%

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Environmental attitude had a totally significant effect on support for sustainable tourism in the model of total effects (c = 0.435; t = 10.803). This result can be confirmed from the results shown both in Table 3 and in Figure 1. Figure 1 shows the variance explained (R²) of community attachment, involvement with the natural resource, and environmental attitude on support for tourism (R² = 0.218). In Figure 2, the measured effects of these variables are shown: the sum of direct effects (c′), the indirect effects (a₁b₁; a₂b₂), and the total indirect effects (a₁b₁ + a₂b₂). As may be seen in Table 3, some of the proposed hypotheses received sufficient empirical support, unlike others that received insufficient support. The results for Hypothesis 1 were significant and positive (c′ = 0.312; t = 6.925). We may therefore be sure that environmental attitude had a positive and direct effect on involvement with the natural resource.

Figure 1

Total Effect of Hypothesis 1

Figure 2

Model With Mediated Effects of the Hypotheses

In the same way, it can be affirmed that the environmental attitude had a positive and significant influence on community attachment (a₁ = 0.588; t = 14.326), thereby giving relation a₁ sufficient empirical support. In this sense, a sufficient level of signification was achieved in the relation (a₂a₂ = −0.084; t = 2.064). In other words, support for sustainable tourism affected involvement with the resource in a negative way. The results obtained with respect to the relation b₁ allowed us to affirm that the impact of community attachment on support for sustainable tourism was positive and significant (b₁ = 0.206; t = 4.690). In contrast, relation b₂ was not significant (b₂ = −0.001; t = 0.029). Thus, we cannot be sure of any effect of involvement with the natural resource on support for sustainable tourism.

With a view to testing the hypothesis of mediation, the effects of mediation were calculated through the multiplication of estimations of the direct hypotheses that intervene in that effect. As may be seen in Table 4, for Hypothesis 2 (Environmental attitude—Support for sustainable tourism via Community attachment), this procedure produced an estimation of the mediation effect equal to 0.121 (in other words, 0.588 × 0.206). The value reached for Hypothesis 3 (Environmental attitude—Support for sustainable tourism via Involvement with the resource was 0.000 (−0.084 × −0.001). We then examined the values obtained with the bootstrapping procedure (5,000 resamples) applied to the indirect relations (Hayes, 2009; Williams & MacKinnon, 2008).

Table 4

Summary of the Test of Mediation Effects

Total Effect		Direct Effect			Indirect Effect
Coefficient	t		Coefficient	t		Estimated Point	95% Percentile Bootstrap
Coefficient	t		Coefficient	t		Estimated Point	5%	95%
0.435	10.803	H1 = c’	0.312	6.925	Total = a₁b₁+a₂b₂	0.121	0.069	0.179
					H2 = Attitude-AttachmentAttachment-Support = a₁b₁	0.121	0.070	0.177
					H3 = Attitude-InvolvementInvolvement-Support = a₂b₂	0.001	−0.006	0.007

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The percentiles 2.5 and 97.5 were then estimated, to define a confidence interval of 95% for each indirect effect. This process was indicated by Castro and Roldán (2013) following Preacher and Hayes (2008) and Taylor et al. (2007). The intervals fluctuated between the values 0.070 and 0.177 (Hypothesis 2), −0.006 and 0.007 (Hypothesis 3). The null hypotheses were then tested, through these confidence intervals, which reflect that the estimation of the corresponding coefficients was close to zero. In all cases, this null hypothesis should not be rejected, as 0 remains present in the intervals. Empirical support was therefore found for Hypothesis 2. It implies the presence of the mediating effects of community attachment in the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism. In contrast, as regards Hypothesis 3, in no way were the results sufficient for us to affirm that involvement with the resource mediates between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism. These results are in agreement with previous studies completed by Baron and Kenny (1986).

Finally, the variation explained (VAR) factor was employed, with a view to estimating the effect of mediation, through the relation between the indirect effect and the total. This indicator should reach a value of between 20% and 80%, so that the mediation effect is partial. If the indicator exceeds 80%, then the effect of the mediation is total (Hair et al., 2014). In this case, VAR for Hypothesis 2 (a₁b₁) was 27.84% (0.121/0.435), while it was nonexistent (0.001/0.435) for Hypothesis 3 (a₂b₂), which yielded a VAR of 0.01%, and a global VAR of 27.85%. On the basis of those VAR, therefore, the mediation of the variable “Community attachment” (Hypothesis 2: a₁b₁) was a partial complementary measurement, while the mediation through “Involvement with natural resource” (Hypothesis 3: a₂b₂) was inexistent.

Discussion and Conclusions

Our analysis of the perceptions of sustainable tourism and its impact in natural areas has revealed important findings relating to the behavior of the community that is involved. This investigation has sought to examine the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism in greater depth, through the analysis of mediation, considering the attachment of individuals with the area and the involvement of the community with the natural resource. A positive and significant effect has been confirmed to exist in the direct relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism. Our findings therefore support the results of other studies such as the following: Nicholas et al. (2009), Andereck and Nyaupane (2011), King et al. (1993), Tomljenovic and Faulkner (2000). At the same time, our results contradict those obtained by Haralambopoulos and Pizam (1996) and Harrill (2004). Thus, the analysis conducted of the community living alongside the Yaque Norte River (in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the Dominican Republic) shows that the individuals with a certain environmental attitude value the development of sustainable tourism in a natural area positively. This positive outcome may be due to a certain awareness of the environment that helps value the positive impact of the sustainable exploitation of natural resources.

The results mean that we can assure that the environmental attitude has a positive and direct effect on both involvement with the resource and community attachment. In other words, an environmental awareness among individuals allows them to feel more rooted in the area and to be more participative in the activities that take place around the natural resource.

Likewise, the attachment of the community impacts in a positive and significant way on sustainable tourism. This result means that the individual feeling of belonging to an area affects the defense of tourism that is responsible for exploiting certain natural resources. The people who therefore feel the greatest sense of belonging to a particular place are the people who will be more in favor of the development of touristic activities that influence the economy of their area in a positive way, without it implying the exhaustion of the natural resource. This result may be thanks to the predisposition of the people with greater attachment, who can assess the benefits and the costs of the activities to be developed in the area with greater precision and completeness.

Besides, our results have also revealed an indirect relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism. This relation is mediated by the local level of community attachment. Expressed in another way, the environmental attitude of the community supports the development of touristic activities when those individuals feel that they belong to that area. This finding is in line with the arguments contributed by the previous literature (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999; Davenport & Anderson, 2005; Hernández-Ramírez et al., 2008). Nevertheless, the effect of that mediating relation is less than the direct impact that environmental attitude has on support for sustainable tourism. Therefore, environmental attitude is the factor that best explains sustainable tourism.

Thus, environmental attitudes directly influence support for the development of sustainable tourism, where the communities assess the fact that tourism helps conserve natural resources, although steps must be taken to ensure that the development of sustainable tourism around the Yaque River produces a minimal impact on the resource, causing the least possible damage.

In contrast, no effect of involvement in the management of the resource on support for sustainable tourism can be assured. Mediating effects of community attachment on the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism have been found. However, no empirical evidence has been advanced in this study to affirm that involvement in the management of the resource mediates between environmental attitude and sustainable tourism.

At an academic level, this work has made different contributions. In the first place, antecedents to support for responsible touristic activities have been offered. In this sense, our findings revealed that it is a difficult task without the support and the participation of the local community. Likewise, this work has covered an analysis of community support for sustainable tourisms through their environmental attitudes, involvement, and attachment to the natural resource of the Yaque del Norte River. In second place, our work has revealed a mediating relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism through community attachment to the area. Third, this work has identified the environmental attitude as the antecedent to community attachment and support for sustainable tourism.

From the practical point of view, this study has, in the first place, contributed new knowledge with regard to the antecedents of support for sustainable tourism development. It will help different waterway management organizations, tourism institutions that use this natural resource for touristic activities, and the tourism organizations of the city and the country with the design and development of activities that will contribute to sustainable touristic development of the river. Caution is recommended when generalizing the results (Hultman et al., 2015), both from the perspective of waterway management organizations and from the perspective of the destination management organizations, and the tourism industry. Second, the results of this investigation have demonstrated their utility, as they can contribute to increasing the support of residents for sustainable tourism development through the promotion of an environmental attitude and attachment to the area. The sustainable management of natural tourism resources, which is the case of this river, implies the protection of its ecology, the consideration of particular characteristics of the host communities and of other stakeholders, and the stimulation of socioeconomic benefits for those groups. In addition, as the development of sustainable activities is a market trend (Sánchez-Ollero et al., 2011) and support to stimulate the economy of the area, resource managers should take into account the factors that influence the perceptions of the community, because their attitudes will facilitate the development of further activity seen as sustainable (Lee & Jan, 2019).

In the end, sustainable tourism development would contribute to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) set by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Thus, for example, with respect to SDG 1, “No poverty,” the results of this investigation of patterns on how to stimulate support for touristic activities in countries and rural areas with little economic activity. Taking the results of this work, we can affirm that encouraging the environmental activities of people from the community, as well as their attachment to the community, will strengthen support for and lessen resistance to the development of sustainable tourism activities. By doing so, it will support the economic resurgence of the area in question.

In the case of SDG 11, “Sustainable cities and communities,” knowing that it is not possible to achieve sustainable development without transforming the present-day practice of constructing and managing urban spaces, the results of this study indicate that strategies to develop tourism in green areas with natural resources, such as the river Yaque, will improve planning and urban management so that they can become participative and inclusive.

The last point is that sustainable tourism serves to complement the economy of the area where the natural resources are found, so it can contribute to the achievement of SDG 8, “Decent work and economic growth,” as well as to SDG 12, “Responsible consumption and production,” due to the touristic activity to be developed that will be compliant with sustainability criteria, in other words, without overexploitation of the natural resources and overseeing their protection.

Finally, the results of this investigation are pertinent for public institutions that have competence in the management of the river, such as the Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidráulicos (INDRHI) [National Institute of Hydraulic Resources], the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Corporación del Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Santiago (CORAASAN) [Water Mains and Drainage Corporation of Santiago], and the Ministry of Tourism. To date, no precise data have been made available on the environmental attitudes of residents, and given that they are positive, and that they are related with support for sustainable tourism, they could serve as a foundation for the development of strategies to support tourism as a method to reduce poverty (Croes, 2014).

Limitations and Concluding Summary

Limitations and Delimitations

We must mention that this study has certain limitations. The statistical technique that is based on predictability is not intended to demonstrate causality (Roldán & Sánchez-Franco, 2012). The way in which the items that construct the indicators of the measurement model have been defined and measured is another limitation. Others could have been selected, given that the final selection was done in accordance with the criteria of the authors, despite their having been selected on the basis of the previous literature, and the results may therefore be biased. These limitations must be overcome by future investigations that, in addition, could cover the relation between support for sustainable tourism among the residents and their environmentally responsible behavior. Likewise, we propose that additional mediating factors be studied in the relation between environmental attitude and support for sustainable tourism. Finally, involvement with the management of the natural resource should be measured through other items, in order to analyze their influence in an optimal way as an antecedent to support for sustainable tourism and the impact that it has on individual environmental attitudes.

Conclusion

This work has set out personal and attitudinal factors that influence support for sustainable tourism. It has also demonstrated that individual environmental attitudes stimulate support for sustainable tourism. In addition, this finding is reinforced by the indirect effect of community attachment. Resource managers must target individuals with stronger environmental attitudes and who feel greater attachment toward their community as well as encouraging higher levels of environmental attitudes and attachment to the community in the rest of the population.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

María de los Ángeles Oviedo-García

Francisco Orgaz-Agüera (e-mail: franorgaz@utesa.edu) is an assistant professor at UTESA, Santiago De Los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Mario Castellanos-Verdugo (e-mail: mario@us.es) is a full professor at the University of Seville, Seville, Spain. José Alberto Acosta Guzmán (e-mail: coormae@utesa.edu) is an assistant professor at UTESA, Santiago De Los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Mar Cobeña (e-mail: mcobena@us.es) is an assistant professor at University of Seville, Seville, Spain. María de los Ángeles Oviedo-García (e-mail: maoviedo@us.es) is a full professor at the University of Seville, Seville, Spain.

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