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. 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
). This implies that destinations further progressed in tourism
development would be considered less ‘unique’ than a region in which tourism has just commenced. Delamere 1997 Reid 2006 Petrosillo Zurlini
Grato and Zaccarelli 2006). This literature shows that the social impact and sensitivity of an area can be measured by monitoring local community perceptions of tourism through
3
social impact or evaluation studies (Fredline, Deery, &
Jago, 2005 ; Delamere, 2001; Delamere, Wankel and Hinch,
). It
has been suggested that community involvement and collaboration in tourism planning is essential to ensure
the success of the destination and to overcome paradoxes (Cook, 1982; Murphy, 1985; Jamal and Getz, 1995).
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).
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). For
example, Saarinen (200
) argued that a destination’s image, knowledge, meanings and natural and cultural
features over slowly stereotype and modify over the course of the transformation process, resulting in a loss of
differentiation between destinations.
