This body of literature recognises the separation between structures and
institutions, although they have been labelled objective and subjective indicators (Choi and Sirakaya, 2006). Another paradox occurs where
tourism is initiated to facilitate economic and social development, but the tourists are separated as an elite
social class (Macaulay, 199
).
Arguably, tourism can deliver socio-cultural transformations (Ratz, 2000; Sebastian and Rajagopalan, 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). As the transformation process is
intertwined with human institutions, a detailed model of the process must consider both structure and
institutions; yet many structural models omit institutional factors and this has been considered their greatest
weakness (Williamson, 2000). 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 paper reports on a preliminary investigation into social
values and perceptions of tourism and economic development in the case study of Toowoomba, Australia.
Institutions and perceptions are an important element of transformation (Mwangi, 2006), so it is appropriate
that the dynamics of tourism transformation have been frequently investigated using resident perceptions of
the industry (Allen, Long, Perdue and Kieselback, 1988; Andereck, Valentine, Knopf and Vogt, 2005; Andriotis,
2005; Ap, 1992; Belisle and Hoy, 1980; Besculides, Lee and McCormick, 2002; Harrill, 200
; Horn and Simmons, 2002;
Johnson, et al. Diedrich and Garcia-Buades (2009) show that as tourism grows and has more severe impacts on an area, so does the population's perception of tourism implications.
Review of the literature indicates that there is a lack of knowledge surrounding the dynamic interaction of
structures and institutions and the reciprocal relationship they have with tourism, particularly at a local level
(Agarwal, 2002; Scott, 2003; Rodriguez, Parra-Lopez and Yanes-Estevez, 2008).