Three Models of Residents’ Reaction (1)

If we look at the situation and particular in the island of Phuket in Thailand,the farmers who traditionally raise two rice crops per year. Where else to just undertake and plant one crop of rice per year? For the benefit of the tourists, said that we will have sufficient water for the tourists. So for the benefit of the tourists, you’ll asking the local rice farmer to half his income. Is that fair?

And when there are rushing of water for the local community, oh,be careful of the use of your water! The local residents maybe can bath with the barker, but the tourist in the luxury hotel,yes, with the swimming pool and the bathtub can use successive miles of water. So where is the equality here? When tourism development take place as I’ve mentioned,there are soon impacts that occur. These impacts are unavoidable and some time inevitable. Obviously one of things that we wish to do is to ensure that we maximize the positive impacts. But we have negative impacts, it’s important for us to avoid them through planning, whatever possible if we cannot avoid them then our rule is to minimize these impacts.

I share with you here a picture from South China Morning Post when an announcement was made that Disneyland is coming to Hong Kong. And the reaction that we want most residents to have about new tourism projects is for people to be happy.

And I’d like to share with you how some of the residents react to tourism and this is based upon research has been conducted by three researchers.

The first one I’d like to share with you is the well-known Doxey’s Irridex Model, irridex meaning irritation index. The study here was conducted in the Caribbean and Doxey found this is help people reacted and as tourists arrivals numbers increased. And when tourists first arrive the local residents are happy, they are euphoria, they are happy to have the tourists. As more tourists come then they get used to them, and then certain type of apathy develop. OK,yes.They are here in town, it’s OK to have them no big deal. As numbers increase, the local residents may become irritated. Oh,we are getting too many tourists, they creating inconveniences, and they become irritated and uncomfortable with having too many tourists around.

And if you get too many tourists, the arrivals increase, it can lead to a very negative situation of antagonism. And when we talk about antagonism, we are talking about physical behavior which frightens or indicates to the tourists and to the guests you are not welcome here, we don’t want you here.Obviously this is the situation we wish to avoid as much as possible. So we look here in the situation with this sale striation and this happening in Hawaii, with the villages we sick of the tourists coming through, and there is bus drive by the throw rocks and rubbish at the tourists. This is what we mean by antagonism.

Another researcher Dogan developed what are they called the Adjustment Model. This Adjustment Model was examined in the context of international tourism. Here,we look at here,there were certain reactions as tourists. International tourists first came there was adoption. Oh,OK.We are happy to have them, we will welcome them. And what we found from the international perspective, the international tourists are often happy and interested in local custom and culture and quite often, this has led to a re-vitalization of local customs and culture, which certainly is a good thing. Again as the numbers of tourists arrived, some of them adopt what we called a boundary maintenance. what do we mean by this? Boundary maintenance is the locals keep their distance from the tourists.

We know they are tourists but I don’t need necessarily to engage or become involve with them. Again as tourism increases in your destination, some people may retreat. Oh,too many tourists,I’m gonna avoid certain areas. And then the last reaction that was observed by Dogan in an international tourism contact is the one of resistance. While people would say “Oh,we got too many tourists, I don’t like them.” And they resist the influence and the impacts of international tourism, particularly the negative ones.