Residents’ Perceptions of the Socio-Cultural Impacts of Tourism in Kavala

This paper investigates how residents of a tourist destination (Kavala) perceive the socio-cultural impacts of tourism on their community and examines whether factors tested in the past like residents’ socio-demographic characteristics (age, education and distance they live from the tourism zone), level of attachment to the community and their economic dependence on the tourism industry influence these perceptions. Although many studies in the past have examined residents’ perceptions of the economic impacts of tourism, the socio-cultural impacts have been less frequently studied, especially in the context of an urban environment which is in the initial stages of tourism development. This paper filled this gap in the literature by collecting data from the city of Kavala in Greece. In the current study, survey was selected as the most appropriate method for the primary data collection and a self-completed questionnaire was distributed to 500 adult residents of Kavala, who were selected after a multi-stage cluster sampling technique was applied. The findings of the study revealed differences in residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts due to factors like respondents’ economic reliance on tourism and their level of attachment to Kavala. These results have important implications for the planning and development of tourism both in Kavala as well as in other destination with similar characteristics.