Abstract

The impacts of tourism on every society are complex and varied in subject. The tourism impacts aresignificant to different communities, groups and individuals depending upon their values, attitudesand the type of resources available for tourism development. Therefore, building on previousresearch, this paper examines the tourists' attitudes towards tourism impacts on their visitingdestination; effect of socio-economic demographics and functional characteristics on their attitudesand different approaches, methods and statistical tools applied for measuring tourists' perceptionstowards tourism development. Review of literature suggests that interactionsbetween visitors andthe host community can lead to short and long term positive and negative, individual and cumulativeimpacts on destinations across the globe. In respect of socio-economic and other functionalcharacteristics of visitors, age, income and life stage have significant effects on tourist behavior and to assesss tourism development, the best approach would be an integrated cost-benefit approach.

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