Journal du tourisme et de l'hôtellerie
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Host Residents’ Attitude toward Community-based Ecotourism: Empirical Study in Southwestern Cambodia

Ven S

The main objective of this paper is to find the determinants of perceived impacts of community-based ecotourism (CBET) onto livelihood assets and outcomes and the determinants of support for community-based ecotourism by using sample data collected from two successful CBETs in southwestern Cambodia, Chambok and Chi Phat CBET. The analysis method was Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The present study concluded that in addition to the determinants of perceived impacts and support for tourism development found by previous studies such as community attachment, community concern, ecocentric attitude, emotional solidarity, tourism dependency, knowledge about the (tourism) industry; natural resource dependency and socio-economic status (as a construct) are also likely to influence residents’ attitude toward CBET. Moreover, as an alternative to the earlier empirical studies that used the residents’ perceived impacts in term of overall economic, socio-cultural, and environmental aspects as determinants of support for tourism development; this study suggests that residents’ perceived impacts of tourism on livelihood assets and outcomes may also affect support for tourism development, especially community-based ecotourism.