University students' perceptions of tourism impacts: a study in Vietnam

Abstract

Purpose

Research about tourism impacts is abundant. However, existing studies often investigate tourism impacts from residents’ and tourists’ perspectives. The study targeting students is absent. The students’ perception and evaluation of tourism impact must be investigated independently to have more insights into improving the current education curriculum, which covertly addresses the impacts. Therefore, this study aims to examine university students’ perception of tourism impacts as young tourists to provide implications for better teaching of such content in the future.

Design/methodology/approach

Vietnam was chosen as the context, and a mixed method was employed. First, free elicitation with 118 university students was carried out to identify the students’ perceived impacts (109 items, four categories). Second, structured surveys using the previously generated content with 243 and 224 university students were implemented to identify the latent structures of the impacts (3-4 factors per impact category).

Findings

Tourism impacts can be dually perceived. In other words, they can come in positive or negative forms or are directed toward the destinations or the residents. However, being positive or negative, or affecting the place or the people, tourism impacts have some general and universal elements concerning the economic, sociocultural and environmental ones. In addition, they have some specific and contextual aspects, such as cross-border marriages, child labor and economic autonomy loss.

Originality/value

Tourism impacts seen from the perspective of university students are relatable and valuable for tourism education. Educators in Vietnam should consider revising the current curriculum to address all the tourism impacts overtly.

Citation

Nghiêm-Phú, B., Hoàng, T.T.-T., Kiều, H.T. and Vũ, H.L. (2023), "University students' perceptions of tourism impacts: a study in Vietnam", Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEAMJ-06-2023-0043

Introduction

Tourism is one of the essential industries in the economies of many countries, including Vietnam. Therefore, education about tourism impacts also is an essential activity. However, educators primarily emphasize tourism’s economic impact (Menon, Gunasekar, Dixit, Das, & Mandal, 2022). In other words, educators in the field may unintentionally neglect or covertly address other aspects of tourism impacts, such as the socio-cultural and environmental ones. Therefore, expanding the current curriculum to overtly educate students about all the potential impacts of tourism is necessary.

Research on tourism impacts, nonetheless, often investigates these issues from the residents’ perspective (Easterling, 2004; Gursoy, Ouyang, Nunkoo, & Wei, 2019). Research about tourism impacts from the tourists’ viewpoints is scarce (De Urioste-Stone, Scaccia, & Howe-Poteet, 2015; Joo & Woosnam, 2019; Moyle, Weiler, & Croy, 2013; Prideaux, McNamara, & Thompson, 2012). The study on university students’ perception and evaluation of tourism impacts is absent. As young adults without much living and working experience, university students may find it difficult to relate to the impacts from other people’s perspectives. Thus, the students’ opinions must be investigated independently for more insights into improving the current education curriculum. The meaningfulness and effectiveness of the new curriculum may be strengthened if the impacts are assessed directly from the students’ points of view.

The abovementioned issues are also apparent in Vietnam’s context. Specifically, university educators and students in the country were more concerned about the tourism industry’s macro and personal economic impacts than the others (Buzinde et al., 2018; Le, McDonald, & Klieve, 2018). University students’ opinions about tourism impacts were neglected (Adongo, Choe, & Han, 2017; Suntikul et al., 2016).

Therefore, this study examines Vietnamese university students’ perception of tourism impacts. It identifies the individual and latent dimensions of tourism impacts via a mixed design (qualitative → quantitative). The outcomes are helpful for tourism students’ future education (McKercher & Prideaux, 2011; Yuan, 2014). They will also enrich the literature on tourism impacts.

Literature review

Tourism impacts

Tourism has many impacts on the destinations and their residents, both positive and negative. On the one hand, tourism participates in planning and implementing development plans for tourist destinations, creating more jobs and income for residents (Alonso, Bressan, O’Shea, & Krajsic, 2015; Shin, 2010). In addition, the sector helps protect and preserve the natural and cultural resources of the destinations and provides suitable environments for residents to live in and be proud of (Tervo-Kankare, Kaján, & Saarinen, 2018; Wang & Bramwell, 2012).

On the other hand, tourism causes price increases in real estate and other public products and services, and different stakeholders may have unequally distributed tourism income (Mbaiwa, 2017; Nghiêm-Phú & Shibuya, 2021). Moreover, tourism may expose too many unwanted pressures on the infrastructure and socio-cultural conditions of the destinations (Nghiêm-Phú & Shibuya, 2021; Postma & Schmuecker, 2017). Considering these impacts, residents may want to support or oppose the further development of tourism in their locations (Eslami, Khalifah, Mardani, Streimikiene, & Han, 2019; Kim & Kang, 2020).

In addition, tourism can also generate some intrinsic impacts for tourists. For example, tourism experiences can make tourists happier and have a better quality of life (Chen, Petrick, & Shahvali, 2016). Happy tourists may return to the destinations and spread good word-of-mouth about the destinations to their acquaintances (Pai, Liu, Kang, & Dai, 2020). However, preparing for the holidays and encountering harmful incidents (e.g. accidents, diseases and relationships with others) during the trips may dampen tourists’ moods and feelings (Agate, Agate, & Birchler, 2015; Crawford, Jackson, & Godbey, 1991). Consequently, many people may hesitate to go on holiday, while many tourists may not want to repeat their trips to the destinations.

On the other hand, tourists also know the external impacts their activities can cause on the destinations. Tourists’ perceived impacts, interestingly, are not different from those perceived by residents, including the economic, sociocultural, environmental and psychological categories (De Urioste-Stone et al., 2015; Moyle et al., 2013; Prideaux et al., 2012). However, how they evaluate the impacts may differ from how the residents see them (Puczkó & Rátz, 2000).

Overall, the perceived impacts of tourism vary across destinations and types of tourism activities (Canteiro, Córdova-Tapia, & Brazeiro, 2018; MacNeill & Wozniak, 2018; Wang, Huang, Gong, & Cao, 2020). The perceptions may also differ among age and occupation groups (Jaafar, Rasoolimanesh, & Ismail, 2017; Sharma & Dyer, 2009). Thus, perceived tourism impacts can be highly subjective and context-based. Therefore, a study on university students’ perception of these issues is essential.

Tourism impacts education

To make tourism a sustainable industry, tourism education curricula at universities should include tourism impacts (Boley, 2011). Unfortunately, this content is often primarily underestimated (Menon et al., 2022). University educators’ priorities seem to be the strengthening of the academia-industry relationships (Anderson & Sanga, 2019; Jennings, Cater, Hales, Kensbock, & Hornby, 2015; Mei, 2019) and the adaptation of advanced technologies (Fatima, Ghandforoush, Khan, & Di Mascio, 2019; Qiu, Li, & Li, 2021; Schott, 2017). In other words, tourism education mainly associates itself with the business world while overlooking its role in addressing social issues (Caton, 2014).

In addition to curriculum-based education, extracurricular activities may further help with tourism impacts education. For example, field trips, both real and virtual, give university students the opportunities to see and hear directly about tourism impacts, especially from the businesses’ and residents’ perspectives (Schott, 2017). Volunteer projects can also create similar effects (Palacios, 2010). From a recreational standpoint, holidays and trips can give university students first-hand knowledge about the tourism industry’s impacts on the destinations (Cohen, 2011). Activities taken during said holidays and trips can also alert university students about the (ir)responsible and (un)sustainable behaviors (Poudel & Nyaupane, 2013). These out-campus exercises can inform students about all types of tourism impacts, both business- and non-business-related.

Nonetheless, the abovementioned extracurricular or out-campus initiatives are only random and sporadic. Although their contributions are invaluable and can help support and enrich the on-campus programs, tourism impact content must be embedded in regular curricula to ensure the meaningfulness and effectiveness of tourism education.

Method

Given the exploratory nature of this study, a mixed method was selected (Figure 1). Initially, the researchers implemented qualitative research to identify the specific impacts that university students could relate to (step 1). After that, they implemented quantitative research to reveal the latent dimensions of students’ perceived impacts (step 2). The researchers followed Worthington and Whittaker (2006) when generating (step 1) and structuring (step 2) the tourism impact items and factors. The research process is visualized in Figure 1.

Qualitative study

With extensive research on tourism impacts, it was easy and convenient to create a pool of individual tourism impact items by reviewing the literature. However, this conventional method was inappropriate since previous studies did not target university students from the learners’ perspective. Instead, the researchers asked the university students in Vietnam to directly and personally talk about their perceived impacts (Worthington & Whittaker, 2006).

Specifically, the research group qualitatively surveyed their university’s tourism students in an illustrative single-case approach (Thomas, 2011). This design was because tourism students in Vietnam could be regarded as relatively homogenous compared to those of other majors, given the job market trends and the admission requirements (Trà My, 2023). Surveying one faculty’s students still had an illustrative value. Noticeably, the involved faculty belonged to a public university based in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam.

Initially, one researcher of the research group asked the students in their classes to write about the impacts of tourism as a part of their assignments. Before this undertaking, this researcher mentioned tourism impacts in their previous classes to guarantee that the students understood the primary concept of impact, although tourism impacts were not part of their curriculum. In the essay, the researcher asked the students to directly describe their latest tourism experiences (question 1) and the impacts of their holidays and trips (question 2) (Bennett, 1984; Reilly, 1990). This free elicitation method ensured that the students’ perception of tourism impacts was derived from their primary encounters with the tourism industry (Cohen, 2011; Poudel & Nyaupane, 2013). Information and knowledge gathered through such extracurricular and out-campus encounters were meaningful to projecting and delivering future curricular and on-campus educational content.

The research group received a total of 118 essays in October 2020. All students took at least one domestic trip in the previous six months (including internships and other extracurricular activities). After that, all research group members worked together to analyze the content of the essays with total agreement as the measure of reliability (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008; Kassarjian, 1977). They identified a total of 109 individual impacts. However, further thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) suggested four different categories: the positive impacts on the destinations (n = 37), the positive impacts on the residents (n = 17), the negative impacts on the destinations (n = 30), and the negative impacts on the residents (n = 25). These outcomes were consistent with the existing literature’s observation about the dual impacts of tourism (positive-negative) and double impact recipients (destination-resident) (Alonso et al., 2015; Postma & Schmuecker, 2017). Thus, they were valid and reliable (results triangulation; Oppermann, 2000).

Quantitative study

Although the individual impacts and the impact categories were already identified and triangulated, the substantial amounts of individual items suggested that there might be some hidden factors in each category. Therefore, the research group implemented a quantitative survey to identify the latent structures of the tourism impact categories in October and November 2021.

Initially, the research group prepared a questionnaire containing all the impact items generated in the qualitative study (109 items). However, the pre-test of this questionnaire suggested that it was challenging for the participants to stay focused when there were too many questions of a similar nature. Therefore, the research group used two questionnaires in the primary survey, each concerning the positive and negative impacts. The students who did not participate in the qualitative study provided their answers to these questionnaires.

Considering the situational conditions caused by COVID-19, the three local researchers posted the questionnaires (Google Forms) on the social media groups of students administered by themselves in two weeks, one in October 2021 (the first stage, the positive questionnaire) and another in November 2021 (the second stage, the negative questionnaire). A total of 311 and 246 students answered the two questionnaires, respectively. Some students who participated in the first stage did not contribute their answers in the second stage. The reason was that their participation was voluntary, and those who lost their interest or were unavailable during the second survey might drop out.

Although the answers were complete, some had the same evaluation value (totally disagree = 1, disagree = 2, neither disagree nor agree = 3, agree = 4, and totally agree = 5). These contributions were removed from the databases to guarantee the meaningfulness of the data. This undertaking left the usable samples of 243 for the positive impacts (mean age = 18.8; first-year = 51.9%; second-year = 26.7%; third-year = 13.6%; fourth-year and others: 7.8%) and 224 for the negative impacts (mean age = 18.4; first-year = 69.6%; second-year = 25.0%; third-year = 4.5%; fourth-year and others: 0.9%), respectively. The male-to-female ratio was approximately 1:9 since female students comprised most of this tourism faculty.

The data were then factor analyzed in IBM SPSS to identify the hidden factors of each perceived tourism impact category. The outcomes suggested three to four factors underlying each category. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin values of the final solutions were bigger than 0.80, and Bartlett’s Tests of Sphericity were all significant (p < 0.000) (Morgan, Leech, Gloeckner, & Barret, 2004). However, the researchers removed from all analyses the items loading on two factors or more, but the gaps between or among the loading values were smaller than 2.0 (Matsunaga, 2010). Eventually, all the loading and communality values of the remaining items exceeded 0.50 and 0.30, respectively (Morgan et al., 2004). The majority of Cronbach’s alphas of the factors were above 0.70. There were two lower alpha values (0.50 < α < 0.70), but they were acceptable given the exploratory nature of the analysis and the small number of items of the related factors (n = 2) (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011).

Finally, the first researcher of the research group prepared the English version of the impact items since the originals were written in Vietnamese. An independent researcher fluent in English and Vietnamese checked and approved these items to ensure their appropriateness before the researchers presented them in this paper.

Findings

From the perspective of Vietnamese university students, the tourism industry can create many positive impacts on the destinations and the residents. In a sense, tourism helps develop the local economy by creating income and revenues, promoting and sustaining the production and service sectors and developing the infrastructure (Table 1, factor 1). The industry also helps maintain and beautify the local natural environment and architectural landscape (Table 1, factor 2). From the socio-cultural standpoint, tourism is the bridge between residents and tourists, allowing them to understand one another better and appreciate others’ cultures and values (Table 1, factor 3). Finally, the industry can spill the effects to other economic sectors, such as banking and health care (Table 1, factor 4).

In another sense, tourism can have specific socio-cultural and environmental contributions to the residents, such as pride strengthening, cross-border exchange and contact provision and ability and attitude change (Table 2, factor 1). Tourism can also bring many economic benefits, such as income and job opportunities (Table 2, factor 2). These impacts are narrower and more personal than those on the destination. Finally, the industry provides opportunities for the female gender to improve their sex role thanks to better financial and social prowess (Table 2, factor 3).

On the other hand, according to the university students surveyed, tourism can also negatively impact the destinations. At the destination level, the industry is a noticeable force behind specific social and environmental issues found at the destinations, such as insecurity, loss of peacefulness and environmental pollution (Table 3, factor 1). In addition, people often blame the industry for its influences on cultural issues, including the weakening and loss of identity, norms and values (Table 3, factor 2). Moreover, tourism can contribute to some economic problems of the destinations, such as ineffective financial resources use and inappropriate planning for future development (Table 3, factor 3).

Besides the above impacts, tourism can be another source of distress for residents. First, the health risks and socioeconomic problems are particularly thought to be created, in part, by the activities of tourists and tourism businesses (Table 4, factor 1). Second, child labor issues can be observed when tourism is an active economic industry, and children are asked or forced to work there (Table 4, factor 2). Third, the loss of economic independence and autonomy can arise when foreign players dominate those of the locals (Table 4, factor 3). Fourth, the income gap may be apparent because some people can make more money from tourism and tourists than others (Table 4, factor 4). Again, these impacts are directed toward the residents personally and narrowly.

Although eliminated in the quantitative analyses, the other impacts corroborate with the latent factors identified earlier. The overall observation is that tourism’s economic, sociocultural, environmental, and, to some extent, health-related impacts are apparent at both the destination and resident levels. However, while the impacts on the destinations are broad and universal, those on the residents are more specific and personal. For example, “sex role improvement” and “child labor” can be considered specific social impacts directed at female and child residents. In addition, “economic (in)dependence” and “income gain/loss” can be regarded as specific economic impacts involving all residents.

Discussion

Tourism impacts can be dually perceived. In other words, they can come in positive and negative forms (Alonso et al., 2015; Mbaiwa, 2017; Postma & Schmuecker, 2017; Tervo-Kankare et al., 2018; Wang & Bramwell, 2012). These impacts can perform their magic for the tourist destinations as a whole. However, from the perspective of the university students, they can also do that to the residents in particular. A place-and-people view of tourism impacts, therefore, also exists.

However, being positive or negative, or affecting the place or the people, tourism impacts seen from the university students’ eyes have some general and universal elements concerning the economic, sociocultural and environmental ones. In addition, they have some specific and contextual aspects as well. Specifically, tourism can create an excellent spill-over effect under an economic calculation that helps develop other economic sectors (Alola, Cop, & Alola, 2019; Ma, Hong, & Zhang, 2015). Nonetheless, the participation of more powerful stakeholders from abroad at tourist destinations can threaten the economic independence and autonomy of the local players; this has a harmful impact (Meyer, 2013; Mitchell & Li, 2017). Alternatively, from a sociocultural perspective, the excellent contribution of tourism can be apparent in the improvement of women’s roles (Ferguson, 2011; Tajeddini, Walle, & Denisa, 2017). Nevertheless, the destructive influence of the industry can be found in the exposure to health risks and the exploitation of child labor (Jiménez, del Carmen Serrano-Barquín, Villarreal, & Vargas Martínez, 2022; Nghiêm-Phú & Shibuya, 2021). Noticeably, such specific and contextual impacts are closely associated with developing tourist destinations, such as Vietnam.

These results suggest that university students’ perception and evaluation of tourism impacts are similar to those of other tourists and residents (De Urioste-Stone et al., 2015; Gursoy et al., 2019; Joo & Woosnam, 2019; Moyle et al., 2013; Prideaux et al., 2012). The latent factors’ contents and names may differ among contexts and subjects, but their nature is the same. The structure of tourism impacts, thus, is objective and stable. However, the particular impacts are subjective and flexible. Therefore, the examination of tourism impacts should simultaneously consider these issues.

Practical implications

University students in Vietnam have proper and up-to-date knowledge about tourism impacts thanks to their extracurricular and out-campus experiences. Tourism educators in this country can further contribute to improving or strengthening the students’ understanding by helping them organize the impacts in a structured way. However, they should notify the students about the multifaceted nature of tourism impacts, including the positive-negative, place-people, general-specific and universal-contextual ones. Regarding the last point (contextual impacts), this study’s outcomes suggest several exciting topics for in-depth discussion. First, local women can find partners for their cross-border relationships and marriages when working in tourism (Statham, Scuzzarello, Sunanta, & Trup, 2020). According to the university students surveyed in this study, this impact is positive. Second, some children must work in the sector to help their families. At the same time, many residents may lose their economic autonomy to foreign business people with more resources (Jiménez et al., 2022; Meyer, 2013; Mitchell & Li, 2017). According to the surveyed university students, these impacts are negative ones.

Nonetheless, to address these contents, tourism institutions in Vietnam must acknowledge the importance of tourism impact education and the lack of non-economic impact education in the current curriculum (Buzinde et al., 2018; Le et al., 2018). They should overtly include the socio-cultural, environmental and health-related impacts either as an independent subject or a prominent topic in an existing subject in their revised curriculum. Other countries where the economic impacts are emphasized while the non-economic impacts are neglected (Menon et al., 2022) can also refer to the case of Vietnam to better develop their tourism education programs.

Concluding remark

University students are mostly young individuals. However, when they use the actual experiences gathered via holidays and trips, they can adequately evaluate the impacts of tourism, the field they are exploring. According to the university students surveyed in this research, tourism impacts are complicated and multifaceted. Tourism educators should combine universal and contextual content in their classes to better assist these students in their future studies. Comparing the situations within and outside a country can provide a diverse perspective on tourism activities and the consequent impacts.

This research, however, could not avoid some limitations. First, it only surveyed students of one tourism faculty. Thus, the outcomes might be incomplete since they did not include the opinions of students of other tourism departments in Hanoi and other cities and provinces in Vietnam. Second, the study did not examine the differences in students’ views according to their internal and external characteristics (e.g., age, personality, tourism experience, business experience). In addition, a comparison of the opinions held by tourism students and other stakeholders (e.g., adult tourists, tourism educators, residents) was unimplemented. Further information for tourism educators, if it was needed, was not available. Third, the students’ opinions were limited to the domestic context. Their evaluations of tourism impacts were not relevant to international tourism. In other words, the contextual impacts for other destinations could not be derived from this study.

Future studies in Vietnam can expand the scale of this study to have broader and comparative insights into university students’ perceived tourism impacts. Other studies abroad may follow the design of this study to identify the contextual perceived impacts and the other facets of the perceived impacts. The outcomes of these efforts will provide essential materials for tourism educators and students in their teaching and studying, especially since contextual knowledge is critical in tourism education (Velempini & Martin, 2019).

Figures

Figure 1

The research process

Table 1

Positive impacts on the destinations

		Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4	Communalities
PD17	Develop the local economy	0.77				0.60
PD16	Diverse local tourism products	0.76				0.63
PD11	Revitalize local traditional specialties	0.75				0.66
PD26	Increase local budget	0.72				0.55
PD14	Make the destination more colorful and livelier	0.70				0.57
PD21	Boost destination promotion	0.69				0.52
PD12	Revitalize local traditional craft villages	0.68				0.56
PD8	Improve and develop local infrastructure	0.64				0.51
PD15	Develop other economic sectors	0.61				0.43
PD19	Renew and sustain local resources		0.75			0.62
PD24	Optimize the use of the local environment		0.67			0.51
PD13	Encourage the protection of the local environment		0.65			0.46
PD18	Renew and sustain local architecture		0.64			0.55
PD23	Optimize the use of local resources		0.61			0.49
PD37	Eliminate the gaps among religions			0.83		0.77
PD35	Eliminate the gaps among peoples			0.79		0.71
PD36	Eliminate the gaps among cultures			0.72		0.65
PD5	Improve local banking service				0.69	0.54
PD6	Improve local health care service				0.61	0.50
Eigenvalues		4.83	2.78	2.16	1.07
% of variance		25.42	14.66	11.36	5.63
Cronbach’s alpha		0.91	0.84	0.87	0.65

Note(s): The other impacts: PD1. Improve local dining service; PD2. Improve local educational service; PD3. Improve local transportation service; PD4. Improve local lodging service; PD7. Improve local political climate; PD9. Reduce local social issues; PD10. Assert local tourism’s position and brand; PD20. Promote local culture; PD22. Increase external organizations and individuals’ participation in protecting the local environment; PD25. Increase local land use’s effectiveness; PD27. Create beautiful sceneries for the destination; PD28. Create foreign currency reserve for the destination; PD29. Diversify the local economy; PD30. Stabilize local society; PD31. Create income for the destination; PD32. Attract domestic and foreign investment for the destination; PD33. Encourage establishing conservation areas in the destination; PD34. Encourage establishing national parks in the destination

Source(s): Authors' work

Table 2

Positive impacts on the residents

		Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Communalities
PR7	Improve the pride of residents	0.87			0.82
PR5	Kindle the pride of residents	0.78			0.70
PR6	Expand the knowledge of residents via contact with tourists	0.70			0.56
PR13	Increase cultural exchange opportunities for residents	0.70			0.65
PR9	Improve local residents’ intellectual ability	0.61			0.47
PR8	Improve local residents’ attitudes toward environmental protection	0.59			0.49
PR15	Increase income for residents		0.80		0.74
PR17	Increase job opportunities for residents		0.66		0.59
PR14	Strengthen government care for residents’ lives		0.56		0.49
PR2	Improve local women’s gender equality thanks to financial independence			0.72	0.61
PR3	Give local women chances to better their lives via relationships and marriages with foreign tourists			0.54	0.30
Eigenvalues		3.43	1.85	1.14
% of variance		31.14	16.80	10.36
Cronbach's alpha		0.89	0.79	0.58

Note(s): The other impacts: PR1. Help the residents facilitate their businesses; PR4. Eliminate emigration to bigger cities; PR10. Improve the residents’ foreign language ability; PR11. Create the residents’ good habits; PR12. Improve the residents’ quality of life; PR16. Create opportunities to escape poverty for the residents thanks to external support

Source(s): Authors' work

Table 3

Negative impacts on the destinations

		Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Communalities
ND25	Worsen the images of the destination and its residents due to increasing social issues	0.71			0.58
ND24	Increase social issues	0.67			0.50
ND16	Pollute the destination’s environment (land, water, air, noise)	0.63			0.49
ND17	Disturb local culture and security as migrants come to the destination to find jobs	0.62			0.41
ND15	Impose a risk to safety and security due to inadequate control of tourists	0.60			0.46
ND22	Break the peacefulness of the destination	0.58			0.39
ND21	Destroy the pristineness of the destination	0.57			0.40
ND2	Alter cultural values and norms		0.78		0.67
ND1	Weaken local cultural identity		0.76		0.61
ND3	Commercialize festivals		0.58		0.48
ND6	Waste of financial resources due to ineffective investment			0.73	0.65
ND7	Exhaust the destination due to over-exploitation and lack of planning			0.66	0.58
Eigenvalues		3.06	1.83	1.34
% of variance		25.46	15.23	11.19
Cronbach’s alpha		0.85	0.79	0.76

Note(s): The other impacts: ND4. Reduce useable land; ND5. Increase soil erosion; ND8. Deteriorate and shut down tourist spots; ND8. Pressurize and overcapacitize tourist spots; ND10. Reduce farming land; ND11. Reduce timberland; ND12. Increase land price; ND13. Destroy the ecosystem; ND14. Create economic leakage; ND18. Create immigration; ND19. Lead to illegal constructions, affecting local natural scenery; ND20. Threaten some animals’ existence; ND23. Affect fishing boats’ operations; ND26. Loss of destination identity; ND27. Increase inflation; ND28. Distort local culture; ND29. Loss of creativity due to mutual copying; ND30. Exhaust the local resources

Source(s): Authors' work

Table 4

Negative impacts on the residents

		Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4	Communalities
NR16	Residents may rely too much on tourism and may be heavily affected when the tourism industry is in trouble (e.g., COVID-19)	0.73				0.63
NR14	Residents may face increasing health issues due to pollution and dangerous waste	0.70				0.57
NR22	Create unequal income distribution among residents	0.58				0.41
NR13	Residents may lose their residencies due to tourism development	0.57				0.46
NR7	Alter residents’ thoughts, conscience, and morality	0.51				0.36
NR23	Residents’ income relies on tourist arrivals and seasons		0.84			0.80
NR24	Children may drop out of school to work in the tourism industry		0.82			0.76
NR25	Children may have to follow their parents or siblings to sell tourism products		0.62			0.54
NR19	Foreign business people and investors may control residents			0.65		0.57
NR18	Residents may lose the role as the leading player once foreign business people and investors arrive at the destination			0.64		0.53
NR20	Foreign business people and investors may dominate residents			0.63		0.56
NR1	Increase the rich-poor gap among residents				0.79	0.69
NR2	Increase the income gap among residents				0.78	0.66
Eigenvalues		2.39	2.14	1.60	1.42
% of variance		18.41	16.47	12.28	10.93
Cronbach's alpha		0.82	0.86	0.77	0.80

Note(s): The other impacts: NR3. Local communities may be broken; NR4. Residents’ life may be pressurized due to regulations; NR5. Affect the residents’ lifestyle and schedule; NR6. Residents’ health may be affected by diseases brought by tourists; NR8. Residents do not work in other economic sectors due to the tourism industry’s higher income; NR9. Increase conflicts among the residents due to competition; NR10. Some residents may have a low quality of life due to high living expenses; NR11. Residents may be affected by tourists’ bad attitudes; NR12. Residents may be pressured by local administration; NR15. Residents may have to buy expensive products and services; NR17. Residents and tourists may have cultural conflicts; NR21. Foreign business people and investors may take the residents’ tourism revenues

Source(s): Authors' work