The Effects of Residents' Mental Image from Their Habitat on Support of Tourism (Case Study: Tabriz City) (Case Study: Tabriz City)

Mental image (positive or negative), that residents of a region have from their habitat, have significant impact on their support of tourism on that region and the amount of local resident’s support could have determinative role on tourism development. Therefore, the aim of this study is to survey the amount of local residents support from tourism development and explain affective factors on support level (mental image). In the terms of purpose and data collection method, this study is practical and analytical- descriptive research, respectively. Partial Least Square (PLS) is used in order to analyze research data from structural equations modeling approach. Structural equations modeling, is expanding of general liner model which allow researcher to examine collection of regression equations simultaneously. Also, the main data collection tool is questionnaires. For this purpose, in the second quarter of year (21 June 2016 to 21 September 2016), 384 questionnaires in the method of simple stratified sampling have been distributed among research statistics community that contains three groups: the households with common living, commercial- services sector and public sector officials. The results of study show that there are significant and positive relationship between mental image of Tabriz residents and their tourism development support. The highest level of tourism development support is related to residents of commercial- services sector (0.367 path coefficient), residents of public sector officials (0.227 path coefficient) and finally the households with common living (0.212 path coefficient). Residents little support of tourism development can be due to their concern of undesirable tourism development or non-utilization of benefits that result from tourism in host community. Therefore, although all three groups support tourism development, but this support was low and authorities should arrange proper policies to increase host community support.
Therefore, this study explores the role of residents' place image in shaping their support for tourism development. The tested model proposes that residents' place image affects their perceptions of tourism impacts and in turn their support for tourism development. Moreover, while residents' place image has been largely neglected by tourism development studies, the findings of this study reveal its significance in shaping residents' perception of tourism impacts as well as their level of support.