Resident attitudes to tourism development — a comparative study between the Rangitikei, New Zealand and Bakewell, United Kingdom

This paper compares responses made to the same questionnaire by residents in two rural areas, one in New Zealand and the other in the UK. However, the areas are in different stages of the destination life cycle. As predicted by Doxey's theory of the Irridex, the attitudes of residents towards tourism in the area which is at the late involvement stage are very supportive, whereas those living in the area which is a mature tourism destination are significantly less so. Other possible determinants of residents' attitudes such as socio-demographic variables, occupation and length of residence were not found to be determining variables. As these conventional determinants failed to act as discriminators an alternative approach is proposed for future research. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.