Residents’ Perception and Attitudes towards Tourism Impacts : A Case Study of the Small Rural Community of Folgaria (Trentino, Italy)

Tourism, as a dynamic and exchange process, involves a direct and reciprocal relation between users, residents and producers of the tourism product. This interaction component can bring both positive and negative consequences and therefore should be carefully monitored in order to minimize the costs implied with the tourism process. The aim of this paper is to analyze how the impacts of tourism are perceived by local population and which factors do affect the relationship between impacts and perceptions' formation, with specific consideration of the framework in a mountain resort. For this purpose, the paper explores the existing literature on issues related to host perceptions and attitudes and involves a primary data collection in the mountain community of Folgaria in Northern Italy. The number and quality of the questionnaires collected allowed us to perform a quantitative analysis of the hosts perceptions and attitudes and a cluster analysis has demonstrated the existence of different groups within which members have common features and similar perceptions and attitudes. In general this research work has revealed a recognition by the residents of the positive economic impacts of tourism. Also the social and cultural impacts are recognized to be positive, but at a lower degree. In terms of the future tourism polices the different groups identified in the cluster analysis exert different positions