Dutch research on resident benefits at international conference
How can residents experience as many positive impacts of tourism as possible? That question is central to research into resident profitability initiated by the Koplopersgroep Bewonersprofijt. This is a partnership of several DMOs, knowledge institutes and NBTC.
They are looking for answers to questions such as:
- In what ways can residents benefit from tourism?
- How do we measure this?
- And how can we maximise the benefit?
CELTH theme managers Living Environment Jeroen Klijs (Breda University of Applied Sciences) and Daniek Nijland (HZ Kenniscentrum Kusttoerisme) are involved in this important research. Together with Karoline Wiegerink and Jan Huizing (Hotelschool The Hague) and Evelien Visser-Jonker (NBTC), they are involved in this research into resident profitability.
At the EuroCHRIE congress in Vienna, they organised a panel discussion from this collaboration. This yielded some interesting insights:
- There is a perception that young people are much more tolerant towards tourism and that especially the older generation complains; but this is not reflected in the studies done in the Netherlands and Germany.
- In Vienna, people are happy if they don't complain or are neutral towards tourism. Is their ambition too low or ours too high, or are we dealing with different contexts?
- Whoever shouts the loudest initially gets the most attention, research can help map how the average resident views tourism.
- The media has a vital role when it comes to influencing sentiment.
- The perspective of the resident themselves, plays an important role when it comes to 'profiting'. Many residents are not sufficiently aware of the positive effects, so there is an important crux there.
In the Trendrapport toerisme, recreatie en vrije tijd to be published at the end of 2023, the researchers will give an intermediate status of the results so far.