A review of social exchange theory effectiveness in measuring residents' attitudes towards tourism

Abstract EN

Tourism impacts and local residents’ perceptions have been undertaken by many researchers for four decades.

Theoretical orientations were used and developed to find out how and why residents react positively and / or negatively to the tourism development in order to achieve a good measurement for their perceptions.

One of the most favorable theories to be adopted in this context is the social exchange theory.

Hence, this review paper is an attempt to understand the effectiveness of this theory when dealing with local residents’ perceptions and attitudes to the tourism impacts comparing with other methods in similar studies.The main conclusion of the paper shows a weakness of the theory, especially when it works without integration with other theories and further predictor variables.

Furthermore, the study showed that most methods and models have the same thrust of the social exchange theory in terms of costs and benefits and their effect on the residents’ perception.

The paper suggests that future studies should be conducted taking into account conditions such as the societal structures and characteristics that should be measured by new theoretical orientations other than those which focus on the costs and benefits theories.