The impact of residents' informedness and involvement on their perceptions of tourism impacts: The case of Bled

The tourism development debate includes many studies on how residents perceive positive or negative tourism impacts, based on sustainability, as understood by a three-pillar concept. However, so far studies were very limited in addressing certain requirements for sustainable tourism, such as informed stakeholders' participation and cooperation, which represent the subject of this study. The survey that was undertaken follows previous ones in using the established three-pillar sustainability concept in order to define impacts of tourism. Further, it adds to tourism research by surveying informedness and developmental involvement. A two-dimensional informedness-involvement tourism grid was used to segment residents and their perceptions on tourism impacts in each segment are analysed. The model was empirically applied to the Slovenian lake and mountain destination of Bled. The findings showed that more informed and more involved residents had more positive perceptions of tourism than all other groups, whereas those residents who were less informed and less involved had more negative perceptions of tourism. The study contributes by expanding knowledge on resident perceptions of tourism by adding in the aspects of informedness and involvement. The proposed model can be applied to any destination to help manage residents' opinions and consequently their support for tourism development.