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Evaluating the Sustainability Issues in Tourism Development: An Adverse-Impact and Serious-Level Analysis

Evaluating the Sustainability Issues in Tourism Development: An Adverse-Impact and Serious-Level... Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly important topic in tourism development research. This study attempts to identify a set of sustainability issues that negatively affect residents’ attitudes toward tourism development. This study extends the importance-performance analysis (IPA) into the “adverse-impact and serious-level analysis” (AISLA) to evaluate sustainability issues in tourism development. A survey was carried out with 430 residents in Macau. According to the results of AISLA, the government was recommended to take “concentration” actions to reduce the levels of impacts of some economic (including inflation, urban service charge, and housing price) and environmental (including noise pollution and destruction of natural landscapes) issues. Furthermore, the government of Macau should take “keep down” actions for most of the socio-cultural issues. This work provides a new perspective for the government to develop sustainable tourism. Keywords negative attitudes, sustainable tourism, importance-performance analysis, adverse-impact and serious-level analysis, Macau According to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Introduction the principle of sustainability refers to the economic, socio- Although the rapid growth of the tourism industry has cultural, and environmental aspects of tourism develop- improved the local economy and community life (Ylli, ment (UNWTO, 2005). Therefore, for sustainable tourism, 2016), in recent years, residents of some tourist destinations an appropriate balance must be struck between benefits and have begun to express dissatisfaction with the increasing issues in economic, socio-cultural, and environmental number of tourists (Mason & Cheyne, 2000; Siu et al., 2013). dimensions of tourism development (Stoddard et al., 2012). The development of sustainable tourism should be negoti- This argument is supported by the Social Exchange Theory ated with destination-level tourism stakeholders (Poudel (SET), that is, if tourism generates fewer benefits than the et al., 2016). Since residents are one of the most important costs, local residents will resist the development of tourism stakeholders and have a considerable influence on develop- (Ap, 1992). Following the SET, researchers agreed that ment outcomes (Lyon et al., 2017), numerous studies have although tourism has a positive economic impact, from the been conducted to investigate the positive impacts on resi- perspective of residents, the environmental and socio-cul- dents’ support for tourism development (Eslami et al., 2019). tural impacts are negative (Hsu et al., 2020; Muresan et al., In practice, economic growth brought about by the develop- 2016). These researchers have put their focus on the poten- ment of tourism will bring negative consequences (Sharpley, tial benefits and issues in the lives of local residents. For 2020). Although researchers have identified different nega- examples, they regard that enriching local recreation and tive issues that affect the lives of residents (Wan & Li, 2013; activities is as an economic benefit (Zhu et al., 2017), but Wu & Chen, 2015), the impacts of these issues on local resi- crime (Dyer et al., 2007) and noise pollution (Filion, 2010) dents have not been well compared, thus triggering residents’ opposition to the development of tourism. Understanding the Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, Guangzhou, China adverse level and serious level of each negative factor can Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau help the government to formulate appropriate strategies to City University of Macau, Taipa, Macau address the issues and obtain residents’ support for tourism Corresponding Author: development. The current study attempts to achieve this Huajun Tang, School of Business, Macau University of Science and objective to evaluate the sustainability issues that affect Technology, O921, Avenida Wai Long, Taipa, 999078, Macau. residents’ lives. Email: hjtang@must.edu.mo Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open as socio-cultural costs and environmental costs (Filion, some potential problems faced by the Macau government 2010). Furthermore, Wu and Chen (2015) identified several may exist among many regional governments. Hence, this economic costs, such as inflation. Therefore, studying the study on the sustainability issues in tourism development sustainability issues in the development of tourism requires offers value for all governments in developing sustainable a comprehensive measurement scale that covers all eco- tourism policies. nomic, socio-cultural, and environmental issues. The sec- As mentioned, this study provides theoretical contribu- ond objective of this study is to develop a new measurement tions in (1) developing a new measurement scale for the sus- scale for the sustainability issues in the development of tainability issues in tourism development and (2) extending tourism. current IPA into AISLA to evaluate these sustainability issues Importance-performance analysis (IPA) is a simple and in tourism development. This work provides a new perspec- effective tool within tourism literature (Lai & Hitchcock, tive for governments to develop sustainable tourism. 2015). According to the customers’ perceived importance and performance of crucial attributes, the current IPA Literature Review approach classifies the items into four strategic categories (concentrate here, keep up the good work, low priority, and The Concept of Sustainability possible overkill) to set the priorities for allocating limited In the 1970s, sustainability was regarded as a notion that resources. It helps managers identify areas where necessary ensured the indefinite existence of mankind on Earth (Daly, actions are taken to improve customer satisfaction (Dwyer 1973). In the 1980s, it was related to issues of conservation et al., 2012). Researchers have applied IPA to rate influenc- of resources, population growth, and standard of living ing factors from a positive perspective on sustainable tour- (Brown, 1981). Since then, more and more attention has ism development. For example, Boley et al. (2017) recently been paid to sustainability research (Jones et al., 2016). In employed IPA to examine residents’ perceptions of sustain- the 2000s, research on sustainability mainly focused on the able tourism initiatives (STIs). STIs are proposed universal concept of “sustainable development,” including the effec- indicators that make good barometers of tourism’s sustain- tiveness of sustainability plans and policies’ implementation ability (Boley et al., 2017). Respondents were asked to rate (Saha, 2009). In the 2010s, sustainability became the pillar the important level of each STI and how well their commu- of sustainable development which is associated with three nity is doing at enacting that STI. The “how well” is a posi- dimensions of harmony between people and nature: eco- tive measure. There Lee and Jan (2019) applied IPA to nomic, social, and environmental (UN, 2012). Today, evaluate the pre- and post-development perceptions of tour- researchers see sustainability as a way of social development ism sustainability. The development perception of tourism that promotes a better life for citizens (Mambretti & Miralles sustainability is also a positive measure. However, this study i Garcia, 2020). The terms “growth” and “sustainability” are attempts to study the issues in residents’ life, the respon- “discursively constructed” as being compatible (Torkington dents are asked to measure how worse their community is et al., 2020), and it has been applied to a variety of circum- facing each issue. The current IPA method is not appro- stances, such as in sustainable tourism research (Eslami priate because the “how worse” is a negative measure. et al., 2019). Therefore, there is a need to revise the current IPA for In the early 1990s, many researchers studied the impacts classifying those issues for recommendations of corre- of mass tourism on sustainable tourism (Poon, 1993). The sponding strategic actions for addressing those issues. The UNWTO provided a useful starting point and has developed extension referred to as “adverse-impact and serious-level a set of sustainable tourism indicators to help tourist destina- analysis” (AISLA). tions implement sustainable tourism (Manning et al., 1996). Macau is a world-famous leisure city and attracts a large Researchers argued that sustainable tourism requires both number of tourists. According to government-reported statis- sustainable growth of tourism’s contribution to the economy, tics (DESC, 2018), 35.80 million inbound tourists visited society, and the environment (Liu, 2003). Thus, for measur- Macau in 2018. However, with only 30 km of land and a ing residents’ attitude toward tourism development, Choi population of 0.64 million, and given its high population and Sirakaya (2005) developed the Sustainable Tourism density, its economic, socio-cultural, and environmental con- Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS) based on SET, including eco- ditions are extremely fragile in face of mass tourism. In nomic benefits, social costs, and environmental sustain- recent years, some residents have reported that the inflation ability. Recently, Wan and Li (2013) argued that sustainable rate, crime rate, and environmental deterioration are associ- tourism meets the need to improve the quality of life of ated with an increasing number of tourists (Wu & Chen, residents. Some researchers recognized that the negative 2015). The literature has also shown that worsening traffic impacts of tourism, such as exceeding carrying capacity, congestion, air pollution, and overcrowding are all because crime, and loss of coastal environment, are unlikely to sup- of a growing number of tourists in Macau (Vong, 2008). It port a thriving tourism development (Higgins-Desbiolles, can be seen that these three issues are common in Macau. 2018). Some studies that examined residents’ attitudes Therefore, Macau is a research site for the study. To refer, Wu et al. 3 Table 1. The Economic Issues of Tourism Development in Recent Studies. Item Factors Author(s) 1 Inflation Wan (2012), Wu and Chen (2015) 2 Labour shortage Lordkipanidze et al. (2005), Wan (2012) 3 Housing price Dyer et al. (2007), Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2011), Schofield (2011), Wu and Chen (2015) 4 Standard of living/cost of living Liu (2003), Muresan et al. (2016), Zhu et al. (2017) 5 Revenue outflow/leakage of casino revenue Kuvan and Akan (2012), Lee and Back (2003) 6 Quality of life Andereck et al. (2005) toward tourism development utilized the SET (Gursoy et al., Socio-Cultural Impacts 2019) and regarded economic impact as a positive dimension From the socio-cultural point of view, tourism trends stimu- that explains residents’ overall attitudes toward tourism late the demand for local handicrafts and accelerate the spread development (Hsu et al., 2020). For example, Wan and Li of local culture (Brunt & Courtney, 1999). Nevertheless, there (2013) used SET to support their findings that economic ben- are still many potential negative factors in the socio-cultural efits, such as employment and economic diversification, sup- aspect (García et al., 2015). Residents concern the security ported the growth of Macau’s tourism industry. issues such as crime (Wan & Li, 2013; Zhu et al., 2017), However, Lasso and Dahles (2018) suggested that eco- prostitution (Dyer et al., 2007; Yan et al., 2018), alcoholism, nomic transformation will also pose a potential threat to resi- and theft (Oviedo-Garcia et al., 2008). In addition, the lit- dents’ livelihoods. Wu and Chen (2015) also found that the erature reveals that tourism development can disrupt the booming economy brought about by gambling tourism has daily lives of residents (Choi & Murray, 2010) and change led to a high cost of living and inflation in Macau. Therefore, the precious traditional culture (Dyer et al., 2007). Table 2 this study attempts to follow the path of Wu and Chen (2015) summarizes the socio-cultural issues that may affect the and conduct a study to evaluate the negative impacts on resi- development of Macau’s tourism industry. dents’ life in both economic, socio-cultural, and environmen- tal dimensions in Macau. Environmental Impacts Due to the increasing environmental problems caused by Economic Impacts tourism, locals have a negative impression of tourism devel- Since the development of tourism has a direct impact on the opment (Nejati et al., 2014). Negative environmental impacts destination economy, researchers associated the economic include overcrowding (Lee & Back, 2003; Ziegler et al., opportunity with some economic indicators, such as GDP, 2016) and traffic congestion (Puczkó & Rátz, 2000; Wan & investment growth rate, and unemployment rate (Witt et al., Li, 2013). On the other hand, road traffic can cause air pollu- 2013). Other than the economic opportunity, Nesticò and tion (Dyer et al., 2007; Zhu et al., 2017) and more noise pol- Maselli (2020) also included tourism intensity (number of lution (Amuquandoh, 2010; Filion, 2010). Studies have annual tourists) and tourism density (number of tourists per indicated that local people are concerned about visible mat- square meter) as sustainability indicators for the economic ters, such as more littering on streets and in public places evaluation. However, residents also perceived certain nega- (Lee & Back, 2003; Muresan et al., 2016; Puczkó & Rátz, tive economic impacts on destination communities (Kumar 2000; Zhu et al., 2017). Studies also indicated that tourism et al., 2015). Some scholars have identified certain sustain- has negative impacts on natural–cultural resources and the able economic issues related to the cost of living, such as environment (Kuvan & Akan, 2012). Table 3 lists common inflation (Wan, 2012; Wu & Chen, 2015), labor shortage environmental factors that may affect the development of (Lordkipanidze et al., 2005; Wan, 2012), cost of living (Liu, Macau’s tourism industry. 2003), and housing price (Dyer et al., 2007; Schofield, 2011; Tables 1 to 3 illustrate different types of negative factors. Wu & Chen, 2015). This study attempts to consolidate all these factors and eval- Apart from the cost of living, residents also worried about uate the impacts of all these issues on residents’ attitudes the impact of tourism on their quality of life (Andereck et al., toward tourism development in Macau. 2005). These negative impacts include instant labor shortage (Lordkipanidze et al., 2005; Wan, 2012), the living standard Importance-Performance Analysis (Zhu et al., 2017), and revenue outflow (Kuvan & Akan, Martilla and James (1977) introduced IPA as a technique for 2012). Table 1 summarizes the economic issues that may evaluating the elements of a marketing program. IPA has affect the development of Macau’s tourism industry. 4 SAGE Open Table 2. The Social-Cultural Issues of Tourism Development in Recent Studies. Item Factors Author(s) 1 Crime/crime rate Dyer et al. (2007), Lee and Back (2003), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), Schofield (2011), Wan (2012), Wan and Li (2013), Wu and Chen (2015), Zhu et al. (2017) 2 Prostitution Dyer et al. (2007), Lee and Back (2003), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), Yan et al. (2018) 3 Drug addiction/drug abuse Lee and Back (2003) 4 Alcoholism Lee and Back (2003), Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2011), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008) 5 Gambling/gambling addicts Lee and Back (2003), Wu and Chen (2015) 6 Political corruption Lee and Back (2003) 7 Theft Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008) 8 Lifestyle of residents’ community/residents’ lifestyle/way of life Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), Wan (2012) 9 Changing precious traditional culture/damage to the local culture Dyer et al. (2007), Kuvan and Akan (2012) Table 3. The Environmental Issues of Tourism Development in Recent Studies. Item Factors Author(s) 1 Overcrowded/crowding Amuquandoh (2010), Lee and Back (2003) 2 Traffic congestion Amuquandoh (2010), Dyer et al. (2007), Lee and Back (2003), Muresan et al. (2016), Wan (2012), Wan and Li (2013), Wu and Chen (2015), Zhu et al. (2017) 3 Noise/noise level Amuquandoh (2010), Filion (2010), Wu and Chen (2015) 4 Litter Lee and Back (2003), Muresan et al. (2016), Zhu et al. (2017) 5 Pollution Dyer et al. (2007), Kuvan and Akan (2012), Muresan et al. (2016), Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2011), Wan (2012), Wu and Chen (2015), Zhu et al. (2017) 6 Environmental damaging/land use loss/ Dyer et al. (2007), Muresan et al. (2016), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), destroying the natural environment Schofield (2011) 7 Damage of cultural resources Kuvan and Akan (2012) become an increasingly popular method in a variety of fields, Azzopardi and Nash (2013) identified many issues in terms especially in tourism research. In the original application of of conceptual validity, predictive validity, and discriminant IPA, the mean importance values are plotted against the validity. To address these issues, Lai and Hitchcock (2015) mean performance values to form an importance-perfor- developed a research framework and a straightforward guide mance mapping (I-P mapping) composed of four quadrants, for the use of IPA. As a result, IPA research becomes more as shown in Figure 1. structured. In I-P mapping, different actions are recommended. For sustainable tourism research, Sörensson and von Quadrant 1 includes variables that are rated high in impor- Friedrichs (2013) claimed that they were the first to use IPA tance but low in performance (concentrate here). Quadrant to evaluate the social and environmental issues at a tourist 2 accepts the variables that are high in both importance and destination. In their study, the importance of sustainability performance (keep up the good work). Those with low rat- factors was compared between international tourists and ings in both importance and performances are located in national tourists. They collected 289 responses from tourists quadrant 3 (low priority). Quadrant 4 adopts the variables in Bologna and found that the responses from two tourist that are low in importance but high in performance (possi- groups differed in 23 sustainability factors. National tourists ble overkill) (O’Leary & Deegan, 2005). Studies have used are aware that most of the sustainability factors were in the many different methods to set the cross-points, such as the “concentrate here” quadrant, but international tourists original “scale-centered quadrants approach” (Martilla & believed that most of the sustainability factors were in the James, 1977), “data-centered quadrants approach” (Alberty “low priority” quadrant. Dwyer et al. (2012) also employed & Mihalik, 1989), “diagonal line model” (Hawes & Rao, IPA to explore the potential role of economic, social, and 1985), “scale-centered diagonal line model” (Abalo et al., environmental reporting in the long-term strategic planning 2006), and “means and diagonal line model” (Rial et al., of the Slovenian hotel industry. They conducted a survey on 2008). 163 tourism stakeholders in Slovenia and compared 33 items Although many researchers successfully applied IPA to in seven factors (general financial performance, hotel-spe- conduct their research, Oh (2001), Bacon (2003), and cific performance, environmental activities related to use of Wu et al. 5 and there is a need to develop a method to classify strategic actions for coping with negative factors. Since this study aims to identify potential sustainability issues (including economic, socio-cultural, and environmen- tal issues) resulting from tourism development in a destina- tion, this work develops a negative IPA approach. This approach measures the level of the adverse impact of each negative factor instead of measuring its importance. Besides, it measures the level of the serious impact of each item rather than its performance. The results of the measurements are plotted on a map, as shown in Figure 2. In traditional IPA, the higher the performance, the lesser the effort should be put. However, this approach alters the direction as the higher the serious impact, the greater the effort should be put. Therefore, the strategic actions for four quadrants are changed accord- ingly. In quadrant I, since both the levels of the adverse impact and the serious impact are high, more resources should be allocated to reduce the impact and/or severity. The strategy for this quadrant is “concentrate here”; it is the same as in the traditional IPA. In quadrant II, since the level of the adverse impact is high, but the serious level is low, an appro- Figure 1. Importance-performance mapping. priate level of resources should be put to reduce the impact. This strategy is “maintain.” In quadrant IV, since the level of resources, environmental awareness, relationship with the the adverse impact is low, but the serious level is high, local community, relations with customers, and relations actions should be taken to avoid its occurrence. The resources with employees) and found that hotel operators should con- for this “avoidance” quadrant should be similar to the “main- centrate on general financial performance and hotel-specific tain” quadrant. In quadrant III, since both the levels of the performance, because neglecting them could threaten hotels’ adverse impact and the serious impact are low, no specific long-term survival. Recently, Boley et al. (2017) conducted actions need to be taken for this “accept” quadrant. This neg- an IPA to examine STIs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. ative IPA approach is named “adverse-impact and serious- Among the 15 STIs, residents in three places all agreed level analysis” (AISLA). that they should concentrate their efforts on “increasing residents’ quality of life,” “protecting water quality,” and Measurement Scale “ensuring tourism development does not exceed the coun- try’s resources.” Due to the limitation in the extant IPA Personal interviews were used to develop a more compre- design, no study has been conducted regarding the adverse hensive measurement scale. Thirty-nine interviews were impacts of the sustainability issues of mass tourism. Most conducted on the streets of the three regions of Macau recently, Lee and Jan (2019) employed IPA to determine (Macau Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane) in June 2016. The residents’ perceptions of the economic, socio-cultural, envi- number of interviews in each region is depended on the ronmental, and life satisfaction sustainability of tourism. ratios of its resident population (16, 13, and 10 residents in They concluded that residents are still satisfied with their the peninsula of Macau, Taipa, and Coloane, respectively). quality of life in the pre- and post-development stages. They Their age ranges from 18 to 71, and the interviewees include have increased their environmental awareness and believed students, retired workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, hotel that tourism provides economic and socio-cultural benefits workers, casino workers, and businessmen. Ten-minute to their community. interviews were conducted for each interviewee, with con- tent mainly on the negative impacts that the interviewees Research Method experienced and their views on sustainable tourism develop- ment in Macau. Interviewees showed great concern about Adverse-Impact and Serious-Level Analysis some economic factors such as urban service charge and liv- In previous studies, due to its design, IPA was mainly applied ing standards. Tourists like to visit the people’s livelihood to identify the potential positive impacts on different aspects. area, which leads to “tourist gentrification” of residential However, some studies in sustainable tourism development space (Postma & Schmuecker, 2017) that causes an increase included negative factors, such as Rasoolimanesh and in people’s livelihood-related consumption in the commu- Jaafar’s (2017) study on World Heritage Site destinations. nity (such as gastronomy and clubs) and affects the resi- Therefore, traditional IPA is not appropriate for these studies dents’ living standards. Tourists also occupy some urban 6 SAGE Open “loss of community characteristics is very serious in Macau,” and “noise pollution is very serious in Macau.” In this sec- tion, a nine-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree) is used. The second section is the back- ground information of the respondents. In the final section, respondents are asked to rate their overall level of dissatis- faction with economic, socio-cultural, and environmental performance in Macau. The questionnaire was then reviewed by two professors in sustainable tourism studies in order to validate its content. For further testing of the readability of the questionnaire, a second pilot test was conducted with 30 residents in May 2018. Its results indicated that the research instrument is adequate. Respondents could complete the survey within 15 minutes and did not have questions about the content of the measurable items. A systematic interviewer-administered questionnaire survey was conducted to collect empirical data in the three regions of Macau: Macau Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane from May to July 2018. A new sample was drawn every 30 minutes in the streets and squares from 9:00 to Figure 2. Adverse-impact and serious-level analysis map. 22:00. Lai and Hitchcock (2017) explained that the streets and squares in Macau are suitable for data collection since they provide an acceptable place for socializing. A total of facilities, such as parks, streets, libraries, science museums, 504 sets of questionnaires were collected by two well-trained etc., thus increasing the charges for some urban services. In research assistants. Two research assistants explained the addition, interviewees expressed that there is a solidarity meanings of “adverse impact in terms of importance level” issue in cultural exchanges between tourists and residents and “serious level” to the respondents when the respondents during tourist-resident interactions. asked about them. According to the distribution of popula- Based on the results of the personal interviews and previ- tion density, 332, 118, and 54 respondents were selected in ous scales, 37 issues were summarized. Then, 56 valid data Macau Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane, respectively. Seventy- were collected for refining the scale items in July 2016. A four sets of data were removed because they had too many procedure of corrected item-total correlation was performed missing values. Finally, 430 sets of valid data were used for for maximizing internal consistency in each dimension. After data analysis by using PLS-SEM. According to Hair et al.’s removing four items which had a correlation coefficient of (2011) recommendation, the sample size should be 10 times less than .50 (including rich-poor divide, lost the folk cul- of the largest number of structural paths. Therefore, the sam- ture, residence place occupied by tourists, and deliberately ple size of this study is sufficient since there are 33 sustain- destroy natural environment), the value of Cronbach’s alpha ability issues. for each dimension increased from .853, .873, and .897 to .861, .905, and .902, respectively. Finally, 33 measurement items were identified for the survey, as shown in Table 4. Results Profiles of the Respondents Questionnaire Design and Data Collection Table 5 shows the demographics of respondents. A total of This questionnaire is comprised of two parts. The first part is 52.6% are females. Only 35.8% of respondents are working designed to measure the level of adverse impact (in terms of in jobs related to tourism. From the income and age distribu- the level of importance) for 33 issues in Macau, including tions, the sample is representative of the entire population of “inflation is an important economic issue in Macau,” “loss of Macau. community characteristics is an important socio-cultural issue in Macau,” and “noise pollution is an important envi- Scale Purification ronmental issue in Macau.” The respondents are asked to complete this part of the questionnaire first. A 10-point scale Following the recommendation of Lai and Hitchcock (2015), ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree) is a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFA) with SPSS used. Then, the respondents are asked to answer the ques- version 16 was performed to process the scale purifica- tions in the second part of the questionnaire, which consists tion. After four cycles of decreasing the number of items, of three sections. The first section is about the serious level three items were removed and 30 items were retained for of the 33 issues, such as “inflation is very serious in Macau,” five components, presenting approximately 76.64% of the Wu et al. 7 Table 4. Measurement Items. Measurement items Measurement item Economic Theft* Ec1 Inflation So8 Social service quality Ec2 Traffic expense So9 Solidarity Ec3 Urban service charge# So10 Recreational facilities Ec4 Labor shortage So11 Foreign labor Ec5 Housing price So12 Immigrants Ec6 Living standards So13 Conflict with tourists Ec7 Revenue outflow So14 Abnormal city development Socio-cultural So15 Loss of community characteristics So1 Crime So16 Changes in local culture So2 Prostitution Environmental So3 Drug En1 Traffic pollution So4 Alcohol abuse En2 Crowded space So5 Gambling addiction En3 Noise pollution So6 Smuggling En4 Littering So7 Usury En5 Urban pollution ,# Corruption* En6 Destroy natural landscapes Disturb residents’ life* En7 Damage cultural heritage *Removed measurement items after running EFA. Measurable items obtained from interviews in this study. Table 5. Demographics of Respondents (n = 430). are five factors: two sets of economic factors named as “economic factor 1” and “economic factor 2,” two sets of Frequency Percent socio-cultural factors named as “socio-cultural factor 1” Gender and “socio-cultural factor 2,” and “environmental factor.” Males 204 47.4 Economic factor 1 is about the costs of living, such as infla- Females 226 52.6 tion. Economic factor 2 is about the quality of living, such as Age living standard. The issues in socio-cultural factor 1 are 18–20 17 4.0 crime-related, such as crime, and the issues in socio-cultural 21–30 150 34.9 factor 2 affect the community, such as changes in the local 31–40 134 31.2 culture. 41–50 87 20.2 Over 50 42 10 Reliability and Validity Education Secondary 132 30.7 The quality of the factor structure was assessed further using Undergraduate 281 65.3 SmartPLS 3.0. Table 7 shows the values of Cronbach’s alpha, Postgraduate 17 4.0 composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted Income (USD) (AVE) of each factor. They are all above the generally Under 625 31 7.2 accepted minimum value of .7, .7, and .5, respectively, so 625–1,249 38 8.8 they have good reliability and validity (Hair et al., 2012). 1,250–1,874 69 16.0 Table 7 also shows the results of Fornell-Larcker criterion 1,875–2,499 152 35.3 and Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio. The values of the 2,500–3,124 54 12.6 square roots of AVEs are more than the correlation coeffi- 3,125–3,749 55 12.8 cient among the constructs, and the values of HTMT ratio are 3,750 or over 31 7.2 lower than .85, representing a satisfactory discriminant val- Job related to tourism No 276 64.2 idly (Hair et al., 2012). Yes 154 35.8 Results of AISLA variance of residents’ attitudes toward the adverse impacts. The mean scores of the adverse impact and serious level of Table 6 shows the results of the EFA. The removed items are the 30 items are shown in Table 8. To reduce common method marked in Table 2. The results of EFA indicate that there bias due to common scale format (Podsakoff et al., 2003), the 8 SAGE Open Table 6. Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis. Five issues (Ec1, Ec3, Ec5, En3, and En6) are recom- mended for “concentrate here” action. The government 1 2 3 4 5 should focus on improving these issues in the “concentrate Ec1 0.770 0.167 0.302 0.220 0.194 here” quadrant (inflation, urban service charge, house price, Ec2 0.783 0.286 0.224 0.199 0.249 noise pollution, and destruction of natural landscapes). Seven Ec3 0.656 0.422 0.172 0.224 0.295 issues (So1, So4, So5, So6, So9, So13, and So14) are located Ec4 0.344 0.677 0.280 0.207 0.205 in the “keep down” quadrant. The government will continue Ec5 0.235 0.692 0.329 0.245 0.221 to keep these issues at low-impact levels, which refer to Ec6 0.210 0.749 0.277 0.238 0.235 crime, alcoholism, gambling addiction, smuggling, solidar- Ec7 0.107 0.767 0.272 0.247 0.154 ity, conflict with tourists, and abnormal city development. So1 0.359 0.194 0.672 0.235 0.245 While eight issues (Ec2, Ec4, Ec6, Ec7, En1, En2, En4, and So2 0.278 0.203 0.731 0.323 0.178 En7) are located in the “stop” quadrant, the government So3 0.171 0.257 0.769 0.236 0.276 should take efforts to minimize their impacts. The rest of the So4 0.147 0.234 0.795 0.279 0.230 issues (So2, So3, So7, So8, So10, So11, So12, So15, So16, So5 0.066 0.300 0.726 0.338 0.229 and En5) are located in the “no action” quadrant, where the So6 0.137 0.267 0.681 0.356 0.324 government does not have to pay too much attention. So7 0.185 0.257 0.667 0.360 0.258 So8 0.313 0.140 0.349 0.625 0.345 So9 0.255 0.112 0.310 0.669 0.355 Discussions So10 0.270 0.125 0.281 0.689 0.337 Theoretical Contributions So11 0.222 0.207 0.323 0.693 0.277 So12 0.126 0.155 0.281 0.751 0.195 This study identified a set of sustainability issues in tourism So13 0.176 0.241 0.230 0.717 0.251 development, which adversely affects Macau residents’ atti- So14 0.035 0.228 0.247 0.795 0.233 tudes toward tourism development. This measurement scale So15 0.078 0.187 0.236 0.717 0.360 was developed from the results of a literature review and per- So16 0.135 0.273 0.187 0.695 0.318 sonal interviews. Most of the previous studies only consid- En1 0.345 0.068 0.375 0.308 0.622 ered the triple bottom line of sustainability (Hsu et al., 2020). En2 0.301 0.115 0.220 0.341 0.683 According to the results of EFA, this study refined the three En3 0.244 0.097 0.203 0.328 0.734 categories into five dimensions for better reflecting the sus- En4 0.181 0.201 0.181 0.290 0.767 tainability issues in tourism development. These five catego- En5 0.076 0.202 0.262 0.271 0.801 ries are: “cost-of-living” economic issues, “quality-of-life” En6 0.173 0.259 0.265 0.300 0.743 economic issues, “crime-related” socio-cultural issues, “com- En7 0.032 0.307 0.225 0.344 0.648 munity” socio-cultural issues, and environmental issues. The Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. “cost-of-living” issues are about immediate residents’ daily Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. expenses such as urban service charges, which are closely Rotation converged in seven iterations. related to residents’ daily lives. The “quality-of-life” issues Bold denotes factor loading > 0.6. are long-term that affect residents’ well-being such as living standards. The “crime-related” issues are security issues that level of adverse impact is measured in 10-point and serious are viewed as by-products of tourism (Nunkoo & Ramkissoon, level is measured in nine-point. An adjustment (*9/10) is 2011), residents and tourists alike are afraid of them. This made for the adverse-impact values for conducting a paired- study highlights smuggling and usury issues that are relevant sample t-test. Table 8 also shows the adjusted mean scores of to gambling activities in casino destinations. Most of the adverse impacts and the results of the paired-sample t-test. other socio-cultural issues under the “community” socio-cul- The item with the largest difference is So16 (changes in local tural dimension are newly created through personal inter- culture) (diff = −0.931, t-value = −11.537). The item with the views in this study. These “community” socio-cultural issues smallest difference is So4 (alcohol abuse) (diff = −0.017, are social service quality, solidarity, recreational facilities, t-value = −0.208). Most of the economic items show great foreign labor, immigrants, conflict with tourists, and abnor- differences between adverse impact and serious level. mal city development. These social-cultural issues have A multiple regression performed by SmartPLS 3.0 was been neglected by previous research. Finally, pollution and employed to obtain the indirect measurement of adverse damage to cultural heritage are common environmental impact for 30 issues. The values of explicit adverse impacts issues observed as adverse consequences of tourism. A for economic, socio-cultural, and environmental items were more detailed division of the triple bottom line can have a obtained by measuring their effects on dissatisfaction with refinement of their impacts on sustainable tourism develop- economic, socio-cultural, and environmental performance, ment and get a more accurate strategic deployment. The respectively. The results of AISLA show that 5, 7, 10, and 8 study contributes to a measurement scale for studying the items are in quadrants I, II, III, and IV, respectively (as shown issues that residents in a tourist destination may experience. in Figure 3). Wu et al. 9 Table 7. Reliability and Validity. Fornell-Larcker criterion Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio Cronbach’s alpha CR AVE EC1 EC2 SO1 SO2 EN EC1 EC2 SO1 SO2 EC1 .888 0.925 0.805 0.897 EC2 .898 0.923 0.750 0.617 0.866 0.741 SO1 .951 0.957 0.763 0.644 0.698 0.873 0.700 0.767 SO2 .953 0.959 0.723 0.593 0.641 0.755 0.850 0.664 0.694 0.789 EN .941 0.950 0.729 0.609 0.616 0.704 0.762 0.854 0.692 0.670 0.741 0.815 Italic denotes square-root of the AVE (average variance extracted). Table 8. Results of AISLA. Adverse impact Serious level (1–9 Adverse impact Adverse impact (1–10 scale) scale) (adjusted) (indirect) Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Diff t-Value Coef. Ec1 6.309 1.640 6.044 1.614 5.678 1.477 0.366 5.268 0.137 I Ec2 6.137 1.500 6.063 1.334 5.523 1.351 0.539 9.217 −0.160 IV Ec3 6.102 1.407 5.784 1.332 5.492 1.268 0.292 4.812 0.061 I Ec4 5.870 1.415 5.702 1.434 5.283 1.275 0.420 6.485 −0.036 IV Ec5 5.951 1.570 5.916 1.444 5.356 1.415 0.560 9.466 0.125 I Ec6 5.986 1.508 5.712 1.381 5.387 1.359 0.324 5.219 −0.132 IV Ec7 5.895 1.524 5.665 1.367 5.306 1.373 0.359 5.268 −0.027 IV So1 5.842 1.700 5.302 1.745 5.258 1.532 0.045 0.537 0.081 II So2 5.602 1.684 5.114 1.754 5.042 1.517 0.072 0.852 −0.064 III So3 5.574 1.860 4.923 1.770 5.017 1.676 −0.094 −1.090 −0.046 III So4 5.616 1.773 5.037 1.720 5.055 1.598 −0.017 −0.208 0.031 II So5 5.586 1.845 5.175 1.927 5.024 1.664 0.150 1.768 0.254 II So6 5.581 1.746 5.191 1.848 5.023 1.573 0.167 2.142 0.055 II So7 5.705 1.907 5.134 1.718 4.972 1.797 0.162 1.673 −0.259 III So8 5.756 1.600 5.176 1.440 5.023 1.656 0.152 1.802 −0.039 III So9 5.584 1.636 5.025 1.474 5.272 1.687 −0.247 −2.929 0.181 II So10 5.658 1.705 5.092 1.537 5.344 1.702 −0.252 −3.106 −0.120 III So11 5.714 1.768 5.143 1.593 5.209 1.582 −0.067 −0.831 −0.146 III So12 5.579 1.722 5.021 1.551 5.095 1.832 −0.074 −0.798 −0.113 III So13 5.553 1.730 4.998 1.558 5.047 1.805 −0.048 −0.549 0.201 II So14 5.507 1.741 4.956 1.569 5.186 1.780 −0.230 −2.640 0.017 II So15 5.719 1.623 5.147 1.463 5.249 1.752 −0.102 −1.193 −0.009 III So16 5.756 1.671 5.180 1.506 6.112 1.622 −0.931 −11.537 −0.123 III En1 6.209 1.674 6.014 1.564 5.624 1.393 0.390 5.155 −0.030 IV En2 6.249 1.546 5.786 1.568 5.446 1.314 0.340 4.601 −0.188 IV En3 6.051 1.459 5.498 1.712 5.404 1.499 0.093 1.183 0.389 I En4 6.005 1.664 5.607 1.701 5.360 1.477 0.247 2.938 −0.033 IV En5 5.956 1.640 5.398 1.735 5.291 1.390 0.107 1.221 −0.246 III En6 5.947 1.687 6.044 1.614 5.678 1.477 0.366 5.268 0.068 I En7 5.879 1.543 6.063 1.334 5.523 1.351 0.539 9.217 −0.067 IV Grand mean 5.829 5.430 5.309 −0.008 The results of Gursoy et al. (2019) meta-analysis revealed “quality-of-life” arising from tourism development are seri- that previous studies mainly compared the perceived benefits ous. Comparatively, “crime-related” and “community” and perceived costs and seldom compared the effects of eco- socio-cultural issues are less serious. The serious level for nomic, socio-cultural, and environmental impacts on resi- environmental issues is high as “quality-of-life” economic dents’ support to tourism. Figure 3 shows that residents issues. These results are reasonable, according to Kim et al. perceived that the economic issues of “cost-of-living” and (2013), residents in Chiang Mai are concerned about their 10 SAGE Open Figure 3. Results plotted in the AISLA map. well-being. They found that perceived economic positively toward tourism development. In addition, Macau is a small affect residents’ sense of well-being. Similarly, residents in city, residents have been complaining about tourists making Macau are worried about the immense economic fallout noise and disrupting their lives. All socio-cultural issues are caused by COVID-19 and the timelines for possible recovery in either quadrant II or quadrant III (see Figure 3). This is and losses recently (McCartney, 2020). Therefore, economic because Macau has been a gambling tourism city for a few issues are often direct and immediate issues that affect resi- 100 years. Since casinos are a normal part of residents’ every- dents’ life which the residents in Macau are more sensitive to day lives (Wu & Chen, 2015), residents understand their them. On the other hand, residents become more concerned roles (as servers for tourists) and the roles of gambling (as a about harms to the environment. It is because their liveli- tourism activity to attract tourists). They know that gambling hoods are intricately linked to the quality of the environment is for tourists and seldom gamble. Therefore, all socio-cul- (Zhang et al., 2020). This study clearly prioritizes the issues tural issues are not serious from the residents’ perspective. In in five categories that the government should address to 2013, Macau residents did not think that tourism causes seri- develop sustainable tourism. ous environmental pollutions (Wu & Chen, 2015). Gursoy In addition, this study not only compares residents’ nega- et al. (2019) study also found that the influence of perceived tive attitudes toward tourism development at a categorical environmental impacts of tourism on residents’ support was level, but also goes deep into different issues. Two cost-of- statistically nonsignificant. However, with an increase in the living economic issues, one quality-of-life economic issue number of tourists, environmental issues become more seri- (inflation, urban service charge, and housing price), and two ous in recent years. Therefore, residents ranked these issues environmental issues (noise pollution and destroying natural into quadrant IV. So, researchers should further verify this landscapes) are located in the “concentrate here” quadrant. change in their future studies. This study provides a compre- These results are reasonable because not all residents can hensive evaluation of the sustainability issues in tourism benefit directly in terms of job employment and salary from development. the growth of tourism in Macau (Wan, 2012). From the point This study demonstrates the use of extended IPA to study of SET (Ap, 1992), those residents who considered that the the impacts of the issues in the development of tourism. The costs outweigh the benefits may have negative attitudes results of the AISLA reasonably classify 30 sustainability Wu et al. 11 issues into four quadrants. This study provides a good case (including visitors) on how to avoid pickpocketing in pub- for researchers to understand the use of AISLA to classify lic areas (including public transportation). negative factors into four quadrants so that corresponding For the issues located in quadrant IV, the Macau govern- actions can be taken to address the issues. ment should put effort to reduce their adverse impacts, especially environmental issues such as “traffic pollution” (En1) and “littering” (En4), because they are located near Practical Implications the crossline of adverse impact. Fortunately, the Macau The sustainability issues located in quadrant I (inflation, light rail transit system commenced operation in 2019, urban service charge, housing price, noise pollution, and reducing the pollution from traffic congestion. Light rail destruction of natural landscapes) need to be addressed by trains can replace shuttle buses to take tourists to casino the Macau government immediately. Among these issues, resorts in Taipa. Many residents complained about “Chinese inflation (Ec1) is difficult to control compared with another tourists littering” on the streets. Posting “stop littering” two economic issues. For the urban service charge issue signs at tourist areas is effective to reduce littering. (Ec3), the Macau government can set different urban service However, littering is an attitudinal problem. Education and charges for local people and tourists. The Macau government reminders to the public can help prevent littering. The can also subsidize the urban service charge for low-income Macau government can set up public announcement sys- and retired residents. tems in tourist areas reminding tourists not to litter. For Besides, the casino industry took off and boosted the other socio-cultural issues located in quadrant III, the property price. Many residents cannot afford the high hous- Macau government does not need to put much effort into ing prices (Ec5). The Macau government should expand the addressing them. economical housing schemes (Macao Housing Bureau, 2017) and set policies to help younger residents to own their Limitations and Recommendations first house in the property market. For example, the Macau government can subsidize some younger residents in need to This study identified the sustainability issues in tourism pay the down payment for homeownership. These policies development that concern residents in Macau. There is a and regulations can effectively reduce the negative economic limitation on the measurement scale. In this study, 11 sus- impacts on residents. tainability issues were added because of 39 personal inter- Regarding the environmental issues, some tourists may views. However, these personal interviews were conducted not be aware of the problem of destroying natural land- in Macau. Therefore, some of these issues may not be found scapes (En6) due to cultural differences. Educating tourists in other tourist cities. Further studies in other tourist cities on civilized behavior through local tour guides may be a are recommended to validate this measurement scale. direct and simple method. For the noise pollution issue This study introduces the AISLA method for classifying (En1), developing more tourism zones in the Cotai Strip can negative factors into different quadrants for different actions. prevent overcrowding of tourists at busy tourist locations in The study shows reasonable results of the AISLA in studying Macau Peninsula that generate noise pollution. For improv- residents’ negative attitudes toward tourism development ing the urban living environment, the Macau government and has validated the design of the AISLA. However, as a should follow the recommendations from the Macao new data analysis method, further studies are recommended Tourism Development Master Plan (2017) to adopt, moni- to validate the AISLA in other tourism studies. Also, the tor, and manage higher environmental standards from mul- adverse level and serious level of the same issue will vary tiple perspectives. from city to city, so the entire set of recommendations could The results show that some socio-cultural issues are in not be appropriate in other tourism cities. quadrant II, which includes crime, alcohol abuse, gambling This study has achieved its aim in evaluating sustainabil- addiction, smuggling, solidarity, conflict with tourists, and ity issues affecting residents’ life. Further qualitative research abnormal city development. Although the levels of seri- is recommended to explain why and how these sustainability ousness for these socio-cultural issues are not high, the issues affect residents’ life. Macau government still needs to maintain its effort to reduce these impacts. Among these issues, the Macau Declaration of Conflicting Interests government should keep monitoring the serious level of “crime” (So1), because it is located near the serious-level The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. crossline. Macau has a low amount of violent crime, but pickpocketing is rampant in public transportation and tour- ist areas. Visitors are more likely than local residents to be Funding victims of these crimes since they are not willing to press The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support charges against criminals. The government should enhance for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This security and prevent crime in tourist areas. 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Evaluating the Sustainability Issues in Tourism Development: An Adverse-Impact and Serious-Level Analysis

Wu, Zilin; Lai, Ivan Ka Wai; Tang, Huajun
SAGE Open , Volume OnlineFirst: 1 – Nov 11, 2021
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2158-2440
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10.1177/21582440211050384
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Abstract

Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly important topic in tourism development research. This study attempts to identify a set of sustainability issues that negatively affect residents’ attitudes toward tourism development. This study extends the importance-performance analysis (IPA) into the “adverse-impact and serious-level analysis” (AISLA) to evaluate sustainability issues in tourism development. A survey was carried out with 430 residents in Macau. According to the results of AISLA, the government was recommended to take “concentration” actions to reduce the levels of impacts of some economic (including inflation, urban service charge, and housing price) and environmental (including noise pollution and destruction of natural landscapes) issues. Furthermore, the government of Macau should take “keep down” actions for most of the socio-cultural issues. This work provides a new perspective for the government to develop sustainable tourism. Keywords negative attitudes, sustainable tourism, importance-performance analysis, adverse-impact and serious-level analysis, Macau According to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Introduction the principle of sustainability refers to the economic, socio- Although the rapid growth of the tourism industry has cultural, and environmental aspects of tourism develop- improved the local economy and community life (Ylli, ment (UNWTO, 2005). Therefore, for sustainable tourism, 2016), in recent years, residents of some tourist destinations an appropriate balance must be struck between benefits and have begun to express dissatisfaction with the increasing issues in economic, socio-cultural, and environmental number of tourists (Mason & Cheyne, 2000; Siu et al., 2013). dimensions of tourism development (Stoddard et al., 2012). The development of sustainable tourism should be negoti- This argument is supported by the Social Exchange Theory ated with destination-level tourism stakeholders (Poudel (SET), that is, if tourism generates fewer benefits than the et al., 2016). Since residents are one of the most important costs, local residents will resist the development of tourism stakeholders and have a considerable influence on develop- (Ap, 1992). Following the SET, researchers agreed that ment outcomes (Lyon et al., 2017), numerous studies have although tourism has a positive economic impact, from the been conducted to investigate the positive impacts on resi- perspective of residents, the environmental and socio-cul- dents’ support for tourism development (Eslami et al., 2019). tural impacts are negative (Hsu et al., 2020; Muresan et al., In practice, economic growth brought about by the develop- 2016). These researchers have put their focus on the poten- ment of tourism will bring negative consequences (Sharpley, tial benefits and issues in the lives of local residents. For 2020). Although researchers have identified different nega- examples, they regard that enriching local recreation and tive issues that affect the lives of residents (Wan & Li, 2013; activities is as an economic benefit (Zhu et al., 2017), but Wu & Chen, 2015), the impacts of these issues on local resi- crime (Dyer et al., 2007) and noise pollution (Filion, 2010) dents have not been well compared, thus triggering residents’ opposition to the development of tourism. Understanding the Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, Guangzhou, China adverse level and serious level of each negative factor can Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau help the government to formulate appropriate strategies to City University of Macau, Taipa, Macau address the issues and obtain residents’ support for tourism Corresponding Author: development. The current study attempts to achieve this Huajun Tang, School of Business, Macau University of Science and objective to evaluate the sustainability issues that affect Technology, O921, Avenida Wai Long, Taipa, 999078, Macau. residents’ lives. Email: hjtang@must.edu.mo Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open as socio-cultural costs and environmental costs (Filion, some potential problems faced by the Macau government 2010). Furthermore, Wu and Chen (2015) identified several may exist among many regional governments. Hence, this economic costs, such as inflation. Therefore, studying the study on the sustainability issues in tourism development sustainability issues in the development of tourism requires offers value for all governments in developing sustainable a comprehensive measurement scale that covers all eco- tourism policies. nomic, socio-cultural, and environmental issues. The sec- As mentioned, this study provides theoretical contribu- ond objective of this study is to develop a new measurement tions in (1) developing a new measurement scale for the sus- scale for the sustainability issues in the development of tainability issues in tourism development and (2) extending tourism. current IPA into AISLA to evaluate these sustainability issues Importance-performance analysis (IPA) is a simple and in tourism development. This work provides a new perspec- effective tool within tourism literature (Lai & Hitchcock, tive for governments to develop sustainable tourism. 2015). According to the customers’ perceived importance and performance of crucial attributes, the current IPA Literature Review approach classifies the items into four strategic categories (concentrate here, keep up the good work, low priority, and The Concept of Sustainability possible overkill) to set the priorities for allocating limited In the 1970s, sustainability was regarded as a notion that resources. It helps managers identify areas where necessary ensured the indefinite existence of mankind on Earth (Daly, actions are taken to improve customer satisfaction (Dwyer 1973). In the 1980s, it was related to issues of conservation et al., 2012). Researchers have applied IPA to rate influenc- of resources, population growth, and standard of living ing factors from a positive perspective on sustainable tour- (Brown, 1981). Since then, more and more attention has ism development. For example, Boley et al. (2017) recently been paid to sustainability research (Jones et al., 2016). In employed IPA to examine residents’ perceptions of sustain- the 2000s, research on sustainability mainly focused on the able tourism initiatives (STIs). STIs are proposed universal concept of “sustainable development,” including the effec- indicators that make good barometers of tourism’s sustain- tiveness of sustainability plans and policies’ implementation ability (Boley et al., 2017). Respondents were asked to rate (Saha, 2009). In the 2010s, sustainability became the pillar the important level of each STI and how well their commu- of sustainable development which is associated with three nity is doing at enacting that STI. The “how well” is a posi- dimensions of harmony between people and nature: eco- tive measure. There Lee and Jan (2019) applied IPA to nomic, social, and environmental (UN, 2012). Today, evaluate the pre- and post-development perceptions of tour- researchers see sustainability as a way of social development ism sustainability. The development perception of tourism that promotes a better life for citizens (Mambretti & Miralles sustainability is also a positive measure. However, this study i Garcia, 2020). The terms “growth” and “sustainability” are attempts to study the issues in residents’ life, the respon- “discursively constructed” as being compatible (Torkington dents are asked to measure how worse their community is et al., 2020), and it has been applied to a variety of circum- facing each issue. The current IPA method is not appro- stances, such as in sustainable tourism research (Eslami priate because the “how worse” is a negative measure. et al., 2019). Therefore, there is a need to revise the current IPA for In the early 1990s, many researchers studied the impacts classifying those issues for recommendations of corre- of mass tourism on sustainable tourism (Poon, 1993). The sponding strategic actions for addressing those issues. The UNWTO provided a useful starting point and has developed extension referred to as “adverse-impact and serious-level a set of sustainable tourism indicators to help tourist destina- analysis” (AISLA). tions implement sustainable tourism (Manning et al., 1996). Macau is a world-famous leisure city and attracts a large Researchers argued that sustainable tourism requires both number of tourists. According to government-reported statis- sustainable growth of tourism’s contribution to the economy, tics (DESC, 2018), 35.80 million inbound tourists visited society, and the environment (Liu, 2003). Thus, for measur- Macau in 2018. However, with only 30 km of land and a ing residents’ attitude toward tourism development, Choi population of 0.64 million, and given its high population and Sirakaya (2005) developed the Sustainable Tourism density, its economic, socio-cultural, and environmental con- Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS) based on SET, including eco- ditions are extremely fragile in face of mass tourism. In nomic benefits, social costs, and environmental sustain- recent years, some residents have reported that the inflation ability. Recently, Wan and Li (2013) argued that sustainable rate, crime rate, and environmental deterioration are associ- tourism meets the need to improve the quality of life of ated with an increasing number of tourists (Wu & Chen, residents. Some researchers recognized that the negative 2015). The literature has also shown that worsening traffic impacts of tourism, such as exceeding carrying capacity, congestion, air pollution, and overcrowding are all because crime, and loss of coastal environment, are unlikely to sup- of a growing number of tourists in Macau (Vong, 2008). It port a thriving tourism development (Higgins-Desbiolles, can be seen that these three issues are common in Macau. 2018). Some studies that examined residents’ attitudes Therefore, Macau is a research site for the study. To refer, Wu et al. 3 Table 1. The Economic Issues of Tourism Development in Recent Studies. Item Factors Author(s) 1 Inflation Wan (2012), Wu and Chen (2015) 2 Labour shortage Lordkipanidze et al. (2005), Wan (2012) 3 Housing price Dyer et al. (2007), Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2011), Schofield (2011), Wu and Chen (2015) 4 Standard of living/cost of living Liu (2003), Muresan et al. (2016), Zhu et al. (2017) 5 Revenue outflow/leakage of casino revenue Kuvan and Akan (2012), Lee and Back (2003) 6 Quality of life Andereck et al. (2005) toward tourism development utilized the SET (Gursoy et al., Socio-Cultural Impacts 2019) and regarded economic impact as a positive dimension From the socio-cultural point of view, tourism trends stimu- that explains residents’ overall attitudes toward tourism late the demand for local handicrafts and accelerate the spread development (Hsu et al., 2020). For example, Wan and Li of local culture (Brunt & Courtney, 1999). Nevertheless, there (2013) used SET to support their findings that economic ben- are still many potential negative factors in the socio-cultural efits, such as employment and economic diversification, sup- aspect (García et al., 2015). Residents concern the security ported the growth of Macau’s tourism industry. issues such as crime (Wan & Li, 2013; Zhu et al., 2017), However, Lasso and Dahles (2018) suggested that eco- prostitution (Dyer et al., 2007; Yan et al., 2018), alcoholism, nomic transformation will also pose a potential threat to resi- and theft (Oviedo-Garcia et al., 2008). In addition, the lit- dents’ livelihoods. Wu and Chen (2015) also found that the erature reveals that tourism development can disrupt the booming economy brought about by gambling tourism has daily lives of residents (Choi & Murray, 2010) and change led to a high cost of living and inflation in Macau. Therefore, the precious traditional culture (Dyer et al., 2007). Table 2 this study attempts to follow the path of Wu and Chen (2015) summarizes the socio-cultural issues that may affect the and conduct a study to evaluate the negative impacts on resi- development of Macau’s tourism industry. dents’ life in both economic, socio-cultural, and environmen- tal dimensions in Macau. Environmental Impacts Due to the increasing environmental problems caused by Economic Impacts tourism, locals have a negative impression of tourism devel- Since the development of tourism has a direct impact on the opment (Nejati et al., 2014). Negative environmental impacts destination economy, researchers associated the economic include overcrowding (Lee & Back, 2003; Ziegler et al., opportunity with some economic indicators, such as GDP, 2016) and traffic congestion (Puczkó & Rátz, 2000; Wan & investment growth rate, and unemployment rate (Witt et al., Li, 2013). On the other hand, road traffic can cause air pollu- 2013). Other than the economic opportunity, Nesticò and tion (Dyer et al., 2007; Zhu et al., 2017) and more noise pol- Maselli (2020) also included tourism intensity (number of lution (Amuquandoh, 2010; Filion, 2010). Studies have annual tourists) and tourism density (number of tourists per indicated that local people are concerned about visible mat- square meter) as sustainability indicators for the economic ters, such as more littering on streets and in public places evaluation. However, residents also perceived certain nega- (Lee & Back, 2003; Muresan et al., 2016; Puczkó & Rátz, tive economic impacts on destination communities (Kumar 2000; Zhu et al., 2017). Studies also indicated that tourism et al., 2015). Some scholars have identified certain sustain- has negative impacts on natural–cultural resources and the able economic issues related to the cost of living, such as environment (Kuvan & Akan, 2012). Table 3 lists common inflation (Wan, 2012; Wu & Chen, 2015), labor shortage environmental factors that may affect the development of (Lordkipanidze et al., 2005; Wan, 2012), cost of living (Liu, Macau’s tourism industry. 2003), and housing price (Dyer et al., 2007; Schofield, 2011; Tables 1 to 3 illustrate different types of negative factors. Wu & Chen, 2015). This study attempts to consolidate all these factors and eval- Apart from the cost of living, residents also worried about uate the impacts of all these issues on residents’ attitudes the impact of tourism on their quality of life (Andereck et al., toward tourism development in Macau. 2005). These negative impacts include instant labor shortage (Lordkipanidze et al., 2005; Wan, 2012), the living standard Importance-Performance Analysis (Zhu et al., 2017), and revenue outflow (Kuvan & Akan, Martilla and James (1977) introduced IPA as a technique for 2012). Table 1 summarizes the economic issues that may evaluating the elements of a marketing program. IPA has affect the development of Macau’s tourism industry. 4 SAGE Open Table 2. The Social-Cultural Issues of Tourism Development in Recent Studies. Item Factors Author(s) 1 Crime/crime rate Dyer et al. (2007), Lee and Back (2003), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), Schofield (2011), Wan (2012), Wan and Li (2013), Wu and Chen (2015), Zhu et al. (2017) 2 Prostitution Dyer et al. (2007), Lee and Back (2003), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), Yan et al. (2018) 3 Drug addiction/drug abuse Lee and Back (2003) 4 Alcoholism Lee and Back (2003), Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2011), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008) 5 Gambling/gambling addicts Lee and Back (2003), Wu and Chen (2015) 6 Political corruption Lee and Back (2003) 7 Theft Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008) 8 Lifestyle of residents’ community/residents’ lifestyle/way of life Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), Wan (2012) 9 Changing precious traditional culture/damage to the local culture Dyer et al. (2007), Kuvan and Akan (2012) Table 3. The Environmental Issues of Tourism Development in Recent Studies. Item Factors Author(s) 1 Overcrowded/crowding Amuquandoh (2010), Lee and Back (2003) 2 Traffic congestion Amuquandoh (2010), Dyer et al. (2007), Lee and Back (2003), Muresan et al. (2016), Wan (2012), Wan and Li (2013), Wu and Chen (2015), Zhu et al. (2017) 3 Noise/noise level Amuquandoh (2010), Filion (2010), Wu and Chen (2015) 4 Litter Lee and Back (2003), Muresan et al. (2016), Zhu et al. (2017) 5 Pollution Dyer et al. (2007), Kuvan and Akan (2012), Muresan et al. (2016), Nunkoo and Ramkissoon (2011), Wan (2012), Wu and Chen (2015), Zhu et al. (2017) 6 Environmental damaging/land use loss/ Dyer et al. (2007), Muresan et al. (2016), Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008), destroying the natural environment Schofield (2011) 7 Damage of cultural resources Kuvan and Akan (2012) become an increasingly popular method in a variety of fields, Azzopardi and Nash (2013) identified many issues in terms especially in tourism research. In the original application of of conceptual validity, predictive validity, and discriminant IPA, the mean importance values are plotted against the validity. To address these issues, Lai and Hitchcock (2015) mean performance values to form an importance-perfor- developed a research framework and a straightforward guide mance mapping (I-P mapping) composed of four quadrants, for the use of IPA. As a result, IPA research becomes more as shown in Figure 1. structured. In I-P mapping, different actions are recommended. For sustainable tourism research, Sörensson and von Quadrant 1 includes variables that are rated high in impor- Friedrichs (2013) claimed that they were the first to use IPA tance but low in performance (concentrate here). Quadrant to evaluate the social and environmental issues at a tourist 2 accepts the variables that are high in both importance and destination. In their study, the importance of sustainability performance (keep up the good work). Those with low rat- factors was compared between international tourists and ings in both importance and performances are located in national tourists. They collected 289 responses from tourists quadrant 3 (low priority). Quadrant 4 adopts the variables in Bologna and found that the responses from two tourist that are low in importance but high in performance (possi- groups differed in 23 sustainability factors. National tourists ble overkill) (O’Leary & Deegan, 2005). Studies have used are aware that most of the sustainability factors were in the many different methods to set the cross-points, such as the “concentrate here” quadrant, but international tourists original “scale-centered quadrants approach” (Martilla & believed that most of the sustainability factors were in the James, 1977), “data-centered quadrants approach” (Alberty “low priority” quadrant. Dwyer et al. (2012) also employed & Mihalik, 1989), “diagonal line model” (Hawes & Rao, IPA to explore the potential role of economic, social, and 1985), “scale-centered diagonal line model” (Abalo et al., environmental reporting in the long-term strategic planning 2006), and “means and diagonal line model” (Rial et al., of the Slovenian hotel industry. They conducted a survey on 2008). 163 tourism stakeholders in Slovenia and compared 33 items Although many researchers successfully applied IPA to in seven factors (general financial performance, hotel-spe- conduct their research, Oh (2001), Bacon (2003), and cific performance, environmental activities related to use of Wu et al. 5 and there is a need to develop a method to classify strategic actions for coping with negative factors. Since this study aims to identify potential sustainability issues (including economic, socio-cultural, and environmen- tal issues) resulting from tourism development in a destina- tion, this work develops a negative IPA approach. This approach measures the level of the adverse impact of each negative factor instead of measuring its importance. Besides, it measures the level of the serious impact of each item rather than its performance. The results of the measurements are plotted on a map, as shown in Figure 2. In traditional IPA, the higher the performance, the lesser the effort should be put. However, this approach alters the direction as the higher the serious impact, the greater the effort should be put. Therefore, the strategic actions for four quadrants are changed accord- ingly. In quadrant I, since both the levels of the adverse impact and the serious impact are high, more resources should be allocated to reduce the impact and/or severity. The strategy for this quadrant is “concentrate here”; it is the same as in the traditional IPA. In quadrant II, since the level of the adverse impact is high, but the serious level is low, an appro- Figure 1. Importance-performance mapping. priate level of resources should be put to reduce the impact. This strategy is “maintain.” In quadrant IV, since the level of resources, environmental awareness, relationship with the the adverse impact is low, but the serious level is high, local community, relations with customers, and relations actions should be taken to avoid its occurrence. The resources with employees) and found that hotel operators should con- for this “avoidance” quadrant should be similar to the “main- centrate on general financial performance and hotel-specific tain” quadrant. In quadrant III, since both the levels of the performance, because neglecting them could threaten hotels’ adverse impact and the serious impact are low, no specific long-term survival. Recently, Boley et al. (2017) conducted actions need to be taken for this “accept” quadrant. This neg- an IPA to examine STIs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. ative IPA approach is named “adverse-impact and serious- Among the 15 STIs, residents in three places all agreed level analysis” (AISLA). that they should concentrate their efforts on “increasing residents’ quality of life,” “protecting water quality,” and Measurement Scale “ensuring tourism development does not exceed the coun- try’s resources.” Due to the limitation in the extant IPA Personal interviews were used to develop a more compre- design, no study has been conducted regarding the adverse hensive measurement scale. Thirty-nine interviews were impacts of the sustainability issues of mass tourism. Most conducted on the streets of the three regions of Macau recently, Lee and Jan (2019) employed IPA to determine (Macau Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane) in June 2016. The residents’ perceptions of the economic, socio-cultural, envi- number of interviews in each region is depended on the ronmental, and life satisfaction sustainability of tourism. ratios of its resident population (16, 13, and 10 residents in They concluded that residents are still satisfied with their the peninsula of Macau, Taipa, and Coloane, respectively). quality of life in the pre- and post-development stages. They Their age ranges from 18 to 71, and the interviewees include have increased their environmental awareness and believed students, retired workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, hotel that tourism provides economic and socio-cultural benefits workers, casino workers, and businessmen. Ten-minute to their community. interviews were conducted for each interviewee, with con- tent mainly on the negative impacts that the interviewees Research Method experienced and their views on sustainable tourism develop- ment in Macau. Interviewees showed great concern about Adverse-Impact and Serious-Level Analysis some economic factors such as urban service charge and liv- In previous studies, due to its design, IPA was mainly applied ing standards. Tourists like to visit the people’s livelihood to identify the potential positive impacts on different aspects. area, which leads to “tourist gentrification” of residential However, some studies in sustainable tourism development space (Postma & Schmuecker, 2017) that causes an increase included negative factors, such as Rasoolimanesh and in people’s livelihood-related consumption in the commu- Jaafar’s (2017) study on World Heritage Site destinations. nity (such as gastronomy and clubs) and affects the resi- Therefore, traditional IPA is not appropriate for these studies dents’ living standards. Tourists also occupy some urban 6 SAGE Open “loss of community characteristics is very serious in Macau,” and “noise pollution is very serious in Macau.” In this sec- tion, a nine-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree) is used. The second section is the back- ground information of the respondents. In the final section, respondents are asked to rate their overall level of dissatis- faction with economic, socio-cultural, and environmental performance in Macau. The questionnaire was then reviewed by two professors in sustainable tourism studies in order to validate its content. For further testing of the readability of the questionnaire, a second pilot test was conducted with 30 residents in May 2018. Its results indicated that the research instrument is adequate. Respondents could complete the survey within 15 minutes and did not have questions about the content of the measurable items. A systematic interviewer-administered questionnaire survey was conducted to collect empirical data in the three regions of Macau: Macau Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane from May to July 2018. A new sample was drawn every 30 minutes in the streets and squares from 9:00 to Figure 2. Adverse-impact and serious-level analysis map. 22:00. Lai and Hitchcock (2017) explained that the streets and squares in Macau are suitable for data collection since they provide an acceptable place for socializing. A total of facilities, such as parks, streets, libraries, science museums, 504 sets of questionnaires were collected by two well-trained etc., thus increasing the charges for some urban services. In research assistants. Two research assistants explained the addition, interviewees expressed that there is a solidarity meanings of “adverse impact in terms of importance level” issue in cultural exchanges between tourists and residents and “serious level” to the respondents when the respondents during tourist-resident interactions. asked about them. According to the distribution of popula- Based on the results of the personal interviews and previ- tion density, 332, 118, and 54 respondents were selected in ous scales, 37 issues were summarized. Then, 56 valid data Macau Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane, respectively. Seventy- were collected for refining the scale items in July 2016. A four sets of data were removed because they had too many procedure of corrected item-total correlation was performed missing values. Finally, 430 sets of valid data were used for for maximizing internal consistency in each dimension. After data analysis by using PLS-SEM. According to Hair et al.’s removing four items which had a correlation coefficient of (2011) recommendation, the sample size should be 10 times less than .50 (including rich-poor divide, lost the folk cul- of the largest number of structural paths. Therefore, the sam- ture, residence place occupied by tourists, and deliberately ple size of this study is sufficient since there are 33 sustain- destroy natural environment), the value of Cronbach’s alpha ability issues. for each dimension increased from .853, .873, and .897 to .861, .905, and .902, respectively. Finally, 33 measurement items were identified for the survey, as shown in Table 4. Results Profiles of the Respondents Questionnaire Design and Data Collection Table 5 shows the demographics of respondents. A total of This questionnaire is comprised of two parts. The first part is 52.6% are females. Only 35.8% of respondents are working designed to measure the level of adverse impact (in terms of in jobs related to tourism. From the income and age distribu- the level of importance) for 33 issues in Macau, including tions, the sample is representative of the entire population of “inflation is an important economic issue in Macau,” “loss of Macau. community characteristics is an important socio-cultural issue in Macau,” and “noise pollution is an important envi- Scale Purification ronmental issue in Macau.” The respondents are asked to complete this part of the questionnaire first. A 10-point scale Following the recommendation of Lai and Hitchcock (2015), ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree) is a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFA) with SPSS used. Then, the respondents are asked to answer the ques- version 16 was performed to process the scale purifica- tions in the second part of the questionnaire, which consists tion. After four cycles of decreasing the number of items, of three sections. The first section is about the serious level three items were removed and 30 items were retained for of the 33 issues, such as “inflation is very serious in Macau,” five components, presenting approximately 76.64% of the Wu et al. 7 Table 4. Measurement Items. Measurement items Measurement item Economic Theft* Ec1 Inflation So8 Social service quality Ec2 Traffic expense So9 Solidarity Ec3 Urban service charge# So10 Recreational facilities Ec4 Labor shortage So11 Foreign labor Ec5 Housing price So12 Immigrants Ec6 Living standards So13 Conflict with tourists Ec7 Revenue outflow So14 Abnormal city development Socio-cultural So15 Loss of community characteristics So1 Crime So16 Changes in local culture So2 Prostitution Environmental So3 Drug En1 Traffic pollution So4 Alcohol abuse En2 Crowded space So5 Gambling addiction En3 Noise pollution So6 Smuggling En4 Littering So7 Usury En5 Urban pollution ,# Corruption* En6 Destroy natural landscapes Disturb residents’ life* En7 Damage cultural heritage *Removed measurement items after running EFA. Measurable items obtained from interviews in this study. Table 5. Demographics of Respondents (n = 430). are five factors: two sets of economic factors named as “economic factor 1” and “economic factor 2,” two sets of Frequency Percent socio-cultural factors named as “socio-cultural factor 1” Gender and “socio-cultural factor 2,” and “environmental factor.” Males 204 47.4 Economic factor 1 is about the costs of living, such as infla- Females 226 52.6 tion. Economic factor 2 is about the quality of living, such as Age living standard. The issues in socio-cultural factor 1 are 18–20 17 4.0 crime-related, such as crime, and the issues in socio-cultural 21–30 150 34.9 factor 2 affect the community, such as changes in the local 31–40 134 31.2 culture. 41–50 87 20.2 Over 50 42 10 Reliability and Validity Education Secondary 132 30.7 The quality of the factor structure was assessed further using Undergraduate 281 65.3 SmartPLS 3.0. Table 7 shows the values of Cronbach’s alpha, Postgraduate 17 4.0 composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted Income (USD) (AVE) of each factor. They are all above the generally Under 625 31 7.2 accepted minimum value of .7, .7, and .5, respectively, so 625–1,249 38 8.8 they have good reliability and validity (Hair et al., 2012). 1,250–1,874 69 16.0 Table 7 also shows the results of Fornell-Larcker criterion 1,875–2,499 152 35.3 and Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio. The values of the 2,500–3,124 54 12.6 square roots of AVEs are more than the correlation coeffi- 3,125–3,749 55 12.8 cient among the constructs, and the values of HTMT ratio are 3,750 or over 31 7.2 lower than .85, representing a satisfactory discriminant val- Job related to tourism No 276 64.2 idly (Hair et al., 2012). Yes 154 35.8 Results of AISLA variance of residents’ attitudes toward the adverse impacts. The mean scores of the adverse impact and serious level of Table 6 shows the results of the EFA. The removed items are the 30 items are shown in Table 8. To reduce common method marked in Table 2. The results of EFA indicate that there bias due to common scale format (Podsakoff et al., 2003), the 8 SAGE Open Table 6. Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis. Five issues (Ec1, Ec3, Ec5, En3, and En6) are recom- mended for “concentrate here” action. The government 1 2 3 4 5 should focus on improving these issues in the “concentrate Ec1 0.770 0.167 0.302 0.220 0.194 here” quadrant (inflation, urban service charge, house price, Ec2 0.783 0.286 0.224 0.199 0.249 noise pollution, and destruction of natural landscapes). Seven Ec3 0.656 0.422 0.172 0.224 0.295 issues (So1, So4, So5, So6, So9, So13, and So14) are located Ec4 0.344 0.677 0.280 0.207 0.205 in the “keep down” quadrant. The government will continue Ec5 0.235 0.692 0.329 0.245 0.221 to keep these issues at low-impact levels, which refer to Ec6 0.210 0.749 0.277 0.238 0.235 crime, alcoholism, gambling addiction, smuggling, solidar- Ec7 0.107 0.767 0.272 0.247 0.154 ity, conflict with tourists, and abnormal city development. So1 0.359 0.194 0.672 0.235 0.245 While eight issues (Ec2, Ec4, Ec6, Ec7, En1, En2, En4, and So2 0.278 0.203 0.731 0.323 0.178 En7) are located in the “stop” quadrant, the government So3 0.171 0.257 0.769 0.236 0.276 should take efforts to minimize their impacts. The rest of the So4 0.147 0.234 0.795 0.279 0.230 issues (So2, So3, So7, So8, So10, So11, So12, So15, So16, So5 0.066 0.300 0.726 0.338 0.229 and En5) are located in the “no action” quadrant, where the So6 0.137 0.267 0.681 0.356 0.324 government does not have to pay too much attention. So7 0.185 0.257 0.667 0.360 0.258 So8 0.313 0.140 0.349 0.625 0.345 So9 0.255 0.112 0.310 0.669 0.355 Discussions So10 0.270 0.125 0.281 0.689 0.337 Theoretical Contributions So11 0.222 0.207 0.323 0.693 0.277 So12 0.126 0.155 0.281 0.751 0.195 This study identified a set of sustainability issues in tourism So13 0.176 0.241 0.230 0.717 0.251 development, which adversely affects Macau residents’ atti- So14 0.035 0.228 0.247 0.795 0.233 tudes toward tourism development. This measurement scale So15 0.078 0.187 0.236 0.717 0.360 was developed from the results of a literature review and per- So16 0.135 0.273 0.187 0.695 0.318 sonal interviews. Most of the previous studies only consid- En1 0.345 0.068 0.375 0.308 0.622 ered the triple bottom line of sustainability (Hsu et al., 2020). En2 0.301 0.115 0.220 0.341 0.683 According to the results of EFA, this study refined the three En3 0.244 0.097 0.203 0.328 0.734 categories into five dimensions for better reflecting the sus- En4 0.181 0.201 0.181 0.290 0.767 tainability issues in tourism development. These five catego- En5 0.076 0.202 0.262 0.271 0.801 ries are: “cost-of-living” economic issues, “quality-of-life” En6 0.173 0.259 0.265 0.300 0.743 economic issues, “crime-related” socio-cultural issues, “com- En7 0.032 0.307 0.225 0.344 0.648 munity” socio-cultural issues, and environmental issues. The Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. “cost-of-living” issues are about immediate residents’ daily Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. expenses such as urban service charges, which are closely Rotation converged in seven iterations. related to residents’ daily lives. The “quality-of-life” issues Bold denotes factor loading > 0.6. are long-term that affect residents’ well-being such as living standards. The “crime-related” issues are security issues that level of adverse impact is measured in 10-point and serious are viewed as by-products of tourism (Nunkoo & Ramkissoon, level is measured in nine-point. An adjustment (*9/10) is 2011), residents and tourists alike are afraid of them. This made for the adverse-impact values for conducting a paired- study highlights smuggling and usury issues that are relevant sample t-test. Table 8 also shows the adjusted mean scores of to gambling activities in casino destinations. Most of the adverse impacts and the results of the paired-sample t-test. other socio-cultural issues under the “community” socio-cul- The item with the largest difference is So16 (changes in local tural dimension are newly created through personal inter- culture) (diff = −0.931, t-value = −11.537). The item with the views in this study. These “community” socio-cultural issues smallest difference is So4 (alcohol abuse) (diff = −0.017, are social service quality, solidarity, recreational facilities, t-value = −0.208). Most of the economic items show great foreign labor, immigrants, conflict with tourists, and abnor- differences between adverse impact and serious level. mal city development. These social-cultural issues have A multiple regression performed by SmartPLS 3.0 was been neglected by previous research. Finally, pollution and employed to obtain the indirect measurement of adverse damage to cultural heritage are common environmental impact for 30 issues. The values of explicit adverse impacts issues observed as adverse consequences of tourism. A for economic, socio-cultural, and environmental items were more detailed division of the triple bottom line can have a obtained by measuring their effects on dissatisfaction with refinement of their impacts on sustainable tourism develop- economic, socio-cultural, and environmental performance, ment and get a more accurate strategic deployment. The respectively. The results of AISLA show that 5, 7, 10, and 8 study contributes to a measurement scale for studying the items are in quadrants I, II, III, and IV, respectively (as shown issues that residents in a tourist destination may experience. in Figure 3). Wu et al. 9 Table 7. Reliability and Validity. Fornell-Larcker criterion Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio Cronbach’s alpha CR AVE EC1 EC2 SO1 SO2 EN EC1 EC2 SO1 SO2 EC1 .888 0.925 0.805 0.897 EC2 .898 0.923 0.750 0.617 0.866 0.741 SO1 .951 0.957 0.763 0.644 0.698 0.873 0.700 0.767 SO2 .953 0.959 0.723 0.593 0.641 0.755 0.850 0.664 0.694 0.789 EN .941 0.950 0.729 0.609 0.616 0.704 0.762 0.854 0.692 0.670 0.741 0.815 Italic denotes square-root of the AVE (average variance extracted). Table 8. Results of AISLA. Adverse impact Serious level (1–9 Adverse impact Adverse impact (1–10 scale) scale) (adjusted) (indirect) Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Diff t-Value Coef. Ec1 6.309 1.640 6.044 1.614 5.678 1.477 0.366 5.268 0.137 I Ec2 6.137 1.500 6.063 1.334 5.523 1.351 0.539 9.217 −0.160 IV Ec3 6.102 1.407 5.784 1.332 5.492 1.268 0.292 4.812 0.061 I Ec4 5.870 1.415 5.702 1.434 5.283 1.275 0.420 6.485 −0.036 IV Ec5 5.951 1.570 5.916 1.444 5.356 1.415 0.560 9.466 0.125 I Ec6 5.986 1.508 5.712 1.381 5.387 1.359 0.324 5.219 −0.132 IV Ec7 5.895 1.524 5.665 1.367 5.306 1.373 0.359 5.268 −0.027 IV So1 5.842 1.700 5.302 1.745 5.258 1.532 0.045 0.537 0.081 II So2 5.602 1.684 5.114 1.754 5.042 1.517 0.072 0.852 −0.064 III So3 5.574 1.860 4.923 1.770 5.017 1.676 −0.094 −1.090 −0.046 III So4 5.616 1.773 5.037 1.720 5.055 1.598 −0.017 −0.208 0.031 II So5 5.586 1.845 5.175 1.927 5.024 1.664 0.150 1.768 0.254 II So6 5.581 1.746 5.191 1.848 5.023 1.573 0.167 2.142 0.055 II So7 5.705 1.907 5.134 1.718 4.972 1.797 0.162 1.673 −0.259 III So8 5.756 1.600 5.176 1.440 5.023 1.656 0.152 1.802 −0.039 III So9 5.584 1.636 5.025 1.474 5.272 1.687 −0.247 −2.929 0.181 II So10 5.658 1.705 5.092 1.537 5.344 1.702 −0.252 −3.106 −0.120 III So11 5.714 1.768 5.143 1.593 5.209 1.582 −0.067 −0.831 −0.146 III So12 5.579 1.722 5.021 1.551 5.095 1.832 −0.074 −0.798 −0.113 III So13 5.553 1.730 4.998 1.558 5.047 1.805 −0.048 −0.549 0.201 II So14 5.507 1.741 4.956 1.569 5.186 1.780 −0.230 −2.640 0.017 II So15 5.719 1.623 5.147 1.463 5.249 1.752 −0.102 −1.193 −0.009 III So16 5.756 1.671 5.180 1.506 6.112 1.622 −0.931 −11.537 −0.123 III En1 6.209 1.674 6.014 1.564 5.624 1.393 0.390 5.155 −0.030 IV En2 6.249 1.546 5.786 1.568 5.446 1.314 0.340 4.601 −0.188 IV En3 6.051 1.459 5.498 1.712 5.404 1.499 0.093 1.183 0.389 I En4 6.005 1.664 5.607 1.701 5.360 1.477 0.247 2.938 −0.033 IV En5 5.956 1.640 5.398 1.735 5.291 1.390 0.107 1.221 −0.246 III En6 5.947 1.687 6.044 1.614 5.678 1.477 0.366 5.268 0.068 I En7 5.879 1.543 6.063 1.334 5.523 1.351 0.539 9.217 −0.067 IV Grand mean 5.829 5.430 5.309 −0.008 The results of Gursoy et al. (2019) meta-analysis revealed “quality-of-life” arising from tourism development are seri- that previous studies mainly compared the perceived benefits ous. Comparatively, “crime-related” and “community” and perceived costs and seldom compared the effects of eco- socio-cultural issues are less serious. The serious level for nomic, socio-cultural, and environmental impacts on resi- environmental issues is high as “quality-of-life” economic dents’ support to tourism. Figure 3 shows that residents issues. These results are reasonable, according to Kim et al. perceived that the economic issues of “cost-of-living” and (2013), residents in Chiang Mai are concerned about their 10 SAGE Open Figure 3. Results plotted in the AISLA map. well-being. They found that perceived economic positively toward tourism development. In addition, Macau is a small affect residents’ sense of well-being. Similarly, residents in city, residents have been complaining about tourists making Macau are worried about the immense economic fallout noise and disrupting their lives. All socio-cultural issues are caused by COVID-19 and the timelines for possible recovery in either quadrant II or quadrant III (see Figure 3). This is and losses recently (McCartney, 2020). Therefore, economic because Macau has been a gambling tourism city for a few issues are often direct and immediate issues that affect resi- 100 years. Since casinos are a normal part of residents’ every- dents’ life which the residents in Macau are more sensitive to day lives (Wu & Chen, 2015), residents understand their them. On the other hand, residents become more concerned roles (as servers for tourists) and the roles of gambling (as a about harms to the environment. It is because their liveli- tourism activity to attract tourists). They know that gambling hoods are intricately linked to the quality of the environment is for tourists and seldom gamble. Therefore, all socio-cul- (Zhang et al., 2020). This study clearly prioritizes the issues tural issues are not serious from the residents’ perspective. In in five categories that the government should address to 2013, Macau residents did not think that tourism causes seri- develop sustainable tourism. ous environmental pollutions (Wu & Chen, 2015). Gursoy In addition, this study not only compares residents’ nega- et al. (2019) study also found that the influence of perceived tive attitudes toward tourism development at a categorical environmental impacts of tourism on residents’ support was level, but also goes deep into different issues. Two cost-of- statistically nonsignificant. However, with an increase in the living economic issues, one quality-of-life economic issue number of tourists, environmental issues become more seri- (inflation, urban service charge, and housing price), and two ous in recent years. Therefore, residents ranked these issues environmental issues (noise pollution and destroying natural into quadrant IV. So, researchers should further verify this landscapes) are located in the “concentrate here” quadrant. change in their future studies. This study provides a compre- These results are reasonable because not all residents can hensive evaluation of the sustainability issues in tourism benefit directly in terms of job employment and salary from development. the growth of tourism in Macau (Wan, 2012). From the point This study demonstrates the use of extended IPA to study of SET (Ap, 1992), those residents who considered that the the impacts of the issues in the development of tourism. The costs outweigh the benefits may have negative attitudes results of the AISLA reasonably classify 30 sustainability Wu et al. 11 issues into four quadrants. This study provides a good case (including visitors) on how to avoid pickpocketing in pub- for researchers to understand the use of AISLA to classify lic areas (including public transportation). negative factors into four quadrants so that corresponding For the issues located in quadrant IV, the Macau govern- actions can be taken to address the issues. ment should put effort to reduce their adverse impacts, especially environmental issues such as “traffic pollution” (En1) and “littering” (En4), because they are located near Practical Implications the crossline of adverse impact. Fortunately, the Macau The sustainability issues located in quadrant I (inflation, light rail transit system commenced operation in 2019, urban service charge, housing price, noise pollution, and reducing the pollution from traffic congestion. Light rail destruction of natural landscapes) need to be addressed by trains can replace shuttle buses to take tourists to casino the Macau government immediately. Among these issues, resorts in Taipa. Many residents complained about “Chinese inflation (Ec1) is difficult to control compared with another tourists littering” on the streets. Posting “stop littering” two economic issues. For the urban service charge issue signs at tourist areas is effective to reduce littering. (Ec3), the Macau government can set different urban service However, littering is an attitudinal problem. Education and charges for local people and tourists. The Macau government reminders to the public can help prevent littering. The can also subsidize the urban service charge for low-income Macau government can set up public announcement sys- and retired residents. tems in tourist areas reminding tourists not to litter. For Besides, the casino industry took off and boosted the other socio-cultural issues located in quadrant III, the property price. Many residents cannot afford the high hous- Macau government does not need to put much effort into ing prices (Ec5). The Macau government should expand the addressing them. economical housing schemes (Macao Housing Bureau, 2017) and set policies to help younger residents to own their Limitations and Recommendations first house in the property market. For example, the Macau government can subsidize some younger residents in need to This study identified the sustainability issues in tourism pay the down payment for homeownership. These policies development that concern residents in Macau. There is a and regulations can effectively reduce the negative economic limitation on the measurement scale. In this study, 11 sus- impacts on residents. tainability issues were added because of 39 personal inter- Regarding the environmental issues, some tourists may views. However, these personal interviews were conducted not be aware of the problem of destroying natural land- in Macau. Therefore, some of these issues may not be found scapes (En6) due to cultural differences. Educating tourists in other tourist cities. Further studies in other tourist cities on civilized behavior through local tour guides may be a are recommended to validate this measurement scale. direct and simple method. For the noise pollution issue This study introduces the AISLA method for classifying (En1), developing more tourism zones in the Cotai Strip can negative factors into different quadrants for different actions. prevent overcrowding of tourists at busy tourist locations in The study shows reasonable results of the AISLA in studying Macau Peninsula that generate noise pollution. For improv- residents’ negative attitudes toward tourism development ing the urban living environment, the Macau government and has validated the design of the AISLA. However, as a should follow the recommendations from the Macao new data analysis method, further studies are recommended Tourism Development Master Plan (2017) to adopt, moni- to validate the AISLA in other tourism studies. Also, the tor, and manage higher environmental standards from mul- adverse level and serious level of the same issue will vary tiple perspectives. from city to city, so the entire set of recommendations could The results show that some socio-cultural issues are in not be appropriate in other tourism cities. quadrant II, which includes crime, alcohol abuse, gambling This study has achieved its aim in evaluating sustainabil- addiction, smuggling, solidarity, conflict with tourists, and ity issues affecting residents’ life. Further qualitative research abnormal city development. Although the levels of seri- is recommended to explain why and how these sustainability ousness for these socio-cultural issues are not high, the issues affect residents’ life. Macau government still needs to maintain its effort to reduce these impacts. Among these issues, the Macau Declaration of Conflicting Interests government should keep monitoring the serious level of “crime” (So1), because it is located near the serious-level The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. crossline. Macau has a low amount of violent crime, but pickpocketing is rampant in public transportation and tour- ist areas. Visitors are more likely than local residents to be Funding victims of these crimes since they are not willing to press The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support charges against criminals. The government should enhance for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This security and prevent crime in tourist areas. 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SAGE Open – SAGE

Published: Nov 11, 2021

Keywords: negative attitudes; sustainable tourism; importance-performance analysis; adverse-impact and serious-level analysis; Macau

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