This paper primarily focuses on measuring social norms and cultural beliefs
relating to economic and tourism development and discusses findings in the context of Toowoomba. This implies that destinations further progressed in tourism
development would be considered less ‘unique’ than a region in which tourism has just commenced. A number
of other studies have linked community perceptions towards visitors with the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC)
model (Butler, 1980), giving rise to concepts of carrying capacity and management across the triple bottom
line (Belisle and Hoy, 1980; Coccossis, 2002; Diedrich and Garcia-Buades, 2009). , 2007; Gartner, 200
). Indeed, this has been extended to suggest that population perceptions can be indicators of destination decline (Faulkner & Tideswell, 1997; Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009).
The literature indicates that clusters require leadership to grow and that direction can originate from
government, as well as from the private sector (Pavlovich, 2003; McLennan, 2005). It has been argued that more rapid and intense tourism development may have a less beneficial effect on societies than smaller scale development (de Kadt, 1979; Pierce, 1989; Ratz, 2000). This paper reports on a preliminary investigation into social
values and perceptions of tourism and economic development in the case study of Toowoomba, Australia.
Paradoxes often occur if tourism is adopted simply for the economic benefits it can provide, such as
employment opportunities, increased income and standards of living and improvements in infrastructure
(Archer and Cooper, 1998; Lindberg, 2001; Liu and Var, 1986; Allen, Hafer, Long and Perdue, 1993) as it can also have
negative impacts, such as inflation, leakage of tourism revenue, changes in value systems and behaviour,
crowding, littering and water shortages (Buckley, 2001; Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996; Mathieson and Wall, 1982).
Arguably, tourism can deliver socio-cultural transformations (Ratz, 2000; Sebastian and Rajagopalan, 2009).