Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access

Abstract

Threatened Halos of Perception: Residents' Accuracy of Crime Changes in a Developing Tourist Area

Ashley V. Reichelmann*, James E. Hawdon and John Ryan

Background: Large scale memorial development has become a growing trend around the world. While numerous studies have tracked the effects of such development on objective measures of community welfare, far less is known about the social effects of memorial tourist attractions on communities where they are placed. This study explores one such impact: how do changes in the social and physical landscape as a result of memorial tourist development affect residents’ perceptions of the crime rate in their community?

Methods: Secondary crime data was coupled with a longitudinal residential survey (n=135), measuring actual and perceived crime rates before and after the attraction’s opening.

Results: While race, income, and political party affiliation predicted pre-opening beliefs, post-opening perceptions of crime change were associated with prior beliefs, residential status, media consumption, and median income. When compared against the objective crime change, residential status was the only predictor of inaccurate perceptions of both property and violent crime.

Conclusions: Aspects of residents’ immediate communities bias their ability to accurately perceive crime change after the opening of a public memorial. The findings encourage researchers to take a more holistic, and yet nuanced, look at the effects of tourism on communities where they are placed. In the present case, such perceptions may have a significant impact on whether or not the objectives of the memorial developers are met. Given the current wave of memorial development worldwide, these findings may contribute to the success or failure of these efforts.

Published Date: 2020-08-21; Received Date: 2020-07-28