Residents’ attitude towards cultural heritage tourism development: An empirical study of West Bengal, India

Tourism is one of the largest and fasted growing industries in the world and also in India. It is observed as a very important means of benefit to local communities. West Bengal, being the home of ancient civilizations and a glorious history of freedom struggle, has a rich cultural heritage. The present study examines the attitude of residents in West Bengal (WB) towards cultural heritage tourism development, where cultural heritage tourism is not well developed yet, although the area has great potential for further development. The study has carried out with field research approach at selected destinations in WB (Kolkata, Hooghly, Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia, Birbhum, Medinipur, Murshidabad and Malda) using stratified proportionate random sampling technique. To test the reliability of questionnaire a pilot test was conducted and Cronbach Alpha coefficient is 0.869 showed that research tool is reliable.

These destinations are highly of the rich cultural imbued with variety of customs in the State of WB. The sample population for this study was composed of residents’ of above mentioned destinations in WB during January to March 2012. In this study we have 273 observations and are analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16. In this study we have observed factor analysis and found two factors wherein factor 1 consists with 11 Variables and factor 2 consists with 5 variables and also observed regression analysis on the factor scores where R² values are 0.933 and 0.921, may infer reasonably good. In this study, the variables of factor 1 and factor 2 have great influence on the attitude of residents towards cultural heritage tourism development in West Bengal. The results also expose that both community attachment and economic dependence have significant effects on positive tourism impact and, in turn, can affect the support for tourism development. Although both impacts have significant effects on sustain for tourism development, the effect from the positive impact is much greater than the negative impact.