Sixth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

While academic research has well established the need and importance of community participation in decision making for cultural heritage tourism (CHT), there is still a lacuna in our knowledge when it comes to understanding what are the attitudes and motivation of people to participate in collaborative governance. Thus, policymaking suffers from a lack of knowledge of how to effectively motivate and engage communities in heritage tourism management. Participatory approaches often focus on the management of various stakeholders without emphasising enough on understanding practical and ideological factors that affect their participation. This paper attempts to decode residents willingness to participate (WTP) in decision making for CHT through the lens of their perception of the place, impact of tourism and existing barriers to participation. This paper hypothesis centers on three relationships: (1)There is a positive relationship between residents’ perception of the local area and its heritage with their WTP, (2)There is a positive relationship between the real and perceived impact of tourism with WTP of residents, (3)There is a negative relationship between current barriers to their participation and their WTP for any future initiatives to collaborate with the authorities. The study collected quantitative data through an attitudinal survey. Since the study deals with multiple factors that may affect WTP of residents, multiple variable regression is used to quantify the factors. The study was carried out in two heritage precincts of New Delhi: Nizamuddin Basti and Shahjahanabad. The paper considers practical implications for policymaking.