Social perceptions of tourism by people living in Latvia Republic

by Teivane, Una.

Teivane Una (Writer) (Last Name) (First) (Initial) Social Perceptions of Tourism by People Living in Latvia Republic (Title) Hospitality and Tourism (Graduate Major) Dr. Randall Upchurch (Research Adviser) March, 1998 146 (Month/Year) (No. of Pages) American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual (Name of Style Manual Used in this Study) The purpose of this study was to determine the social impacts of tourism upon the local residents of Latvia. The objectives of the study was: 1) to identify the positive and negative social impacts and assess how much Latvia residents are aware of the impacts; 2) to determine the differences in perceptions of negative and positive social impacts of tourism between a small tourist oriented city Sigulda and a large industrial city Riga. The sample size was three hundred Latvia residents, two hundred fifty from Riga and fifty from Sigulda. Two hundred seventy one surveys were completed with the response rate of ninety percent. iv The instrument consisted of three sections. First two sections were dealing with number of tourists, changes and impacts caused by tourism. The third section dealt with the demographic information. Despite the perception of some negative aspects, Latvia residents considered the social impacts of tourism to be rather positive and beneficial. Latvians did favor tourism development as they did not think that tourist behavior, their dress patterns, manners influence the community and people negatively. They thought that tourists help the country to develop and gain a lot of positive things, including revenue, knowledge and feeling closer and as a part of Europe. v