Considering emotional solidarity and the theory of planned behavior in explaining behavioral intentions to support tourism development

Though the tourism literature has experienced no shortage of research surrounding residents’ attitudinal support for tourism and tourism development, seldom has work focused on behavioral intentions of support, especially taking into consideration residents’ perceived relationship with tourists. That said, the aim of this study is to formulate a model that incorporates emotional solidarity and theory of planned behavior constructs to gauge residents’ behavioral intentions to support tourism. To test proposed model relationships between emotional solidarity, attitudinal support for tourism, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and behavioral intentions to support, data was collected from 740 residents of the widely-popular Mediterranean destination, Izmir (Turkey), and analyzed via structural equation modelling. Results revealed that each of the six proposed hypotheses were supported in the theoretical model. The three factors of emotional solidarity (i.e., welcoming nature, sympathetic understanding, and emotional closeness) uniquely explained 45% (R2SMC = 0.45) of the variance in attitudinal support for tourism. In turn, attitudinal support, along with perceived behavioral control and subjective norms, explained 42% (R2SMC = 0.42) of the variance in behavioral intentions to support tourism within Izmir. Implications for theory and practice along with limitations and future research opportunities are discussed at the close of the paper.