Host Community's Attitude and Perceptions Towards Tourism The Case of The Municipality of Caramoan, Province of Camarines Sur, Phillipines

Studies on the host community's attitudes and perceptions towards tourism are still very few especially with regard to developing countries. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the demographic attributes of local residents and their attitudes and perceptions towards tourism in the Municipality of Caramoan, Province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. Caramoan is a coastal town and its tourism can now be classified in the development stage based from Richard Butler's Resort-Cycle Evolution Model. Caramoan is now becoming famous for both domestic and foreign tourists because of its exposure and continuous recognition from both local and international media as the venue of the hit-reality show Survivor. In this study, the host community's attitudes and perceptions were evaluated by adapting 20 items from the Tourism Impact Attitude Scale (TIAS) developed by Lankford and Howard (1994) and was used by Wang, Pfister and Morais (2006). Statistical tools such as Mean score, T-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to determine the relationship of the demographic attributes to the socio-cultural, economic and environmental impacts and to the concern for tourism development and contributions to quality of life. Based from the findings, the host community of Caramoan has a positive attitude and perception regarding tourism which is related to the tenets of the social exchange theory of Ap (1992). The results also support the findings of Wang et al. (2006) where their respondents in the study area have a favorable attitude toward the initial stage of tourism. With regard to concerns on tourism development and its contributions to quality of life, it appeared that gender, age, education, length of residence, and occupation have a significant relationship to the host community's attitudes and perceptions towards tourism.