The effects of residents' social identity and involvement on their advocacy of incoming tourism

•Investigates residents' identity and its effects on their advocacy of inward tourism.•307 Welsh residents recorded items measuring their identity and their tourism advocacy behaviours.•Affective components of identity had no significant effect on advocacy.•Significant direct and indirect effects of cognitive components of identity were found.•Advertising images presented by many tourism DMOs are incongruent with residents' identity.

A long stream of literature has identified cognitive, emotional and evaluative dimensions of social identity. Previous studies have examined identity self-congruence of incoming tourists. However, the application of identity theory to the study of host communities' support of incoming tourism has been under-researched. This paper seeks to make a contribution by closing this gap by investigating residents' identity and its association with their propensity to become advocates for inward tourism. A largely quantitative survey methodology used a sample of 307 Welsh residents to record items measuring their identity, involvement with tourism activities and their tourism advocacy behaviours. Affective components of identity had no significant effect on advocacy, but significant direct effects of cognitive components were found and also indirect effects mediated by involvement with tourists. It is concluded that advertising images presented by many tourism destination marketing organisations are incongruent with residents' identity. Cognitive identity results in stronger advocacy behaviours, and can be encouraged by greater involvement of residents with tourism activities.