The Environmental Impact of Perhentian Island

As a natural island, Perhentian Island has now become a popular attraction for both local and international tourists because of its beautiful beaches and islands. The rapid development of the tourism sector will consequently lead to the high influx of tourists to the tourist destination. However, uncontrolled tourism development can have negative impacts on the environment. The purpose of this study is to identify the perception of the residents on the environmental impact of tourism development in their area. A total of 200 questionnaires were applied in Perhentian Island by using a simple random sampling method. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics, reliability test, factor analysis, independent ttest, one-way ANOVA and multiple regression. The results of this study showed that 38.855% of variance of residents perception has been explained by natural resources of tourism, 23.163% of variance has been explained by environmental concerns of tourism and 16.210% of variance has been explained by environmental pollution of tourism. There were significant differences in variables such as age [F (74,125) = 1.574, p=0.013] and monthly income [F (74,125) = 2.424, p=0.000] with resident perception of the overall impacts of the environment. Further, the components of environmental impact namely natural resources, environmental concern and environmental pollution, are predictors of resident support for the tourism sector [F (3,196) = 4.704, ρ<0.05] in Perhentian Island. As a conclusion, this study has provided a clear picture of the environmental impacts of tourism development and residents support for tourism development in Perhentian Island. Subsequently, the environmental impacts received by the residents were further explored to identify the components involved and subsequently linked to their support for the development of the tourism sector.