Impacts of community market development on the residents’ well-being and satisfaction

Abstract

© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: This study aims to investigate the attitude and effects that community residents perceive the development of community market as a tourist attraction. The study examines the moderating role of the stages of the community life cycle, particularly the consolidation and stagnation stages, on the perceived tourism impacts concerning the community well-being. Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modelling using partial least squares analysis has been used in this study. This study has collected the responses from 852 respondents who are the residents of the 10 community markets in Thailand. Findings: The key findings reveal that under the context of community markets, the economic factor, cultural factor and attitude of residents towards community market development have strong influences on community well-being, while the environmental factor does not show influence. Moreover, a deeper investigation on the stages of community development reveals various emphases on their impacts on the community well-being. The residents of the markets under the consolidation (early maturity) stage perceive the economic and cultural impacts to have more influence on well-being than the other stages, whereas residents of the markets under the stagnation (late maturity) stage perceive that the environmental factor and the attitude of having the community market have more influence. Although the findings that use the community life cycle as a moderating role do not yield significant results, they provide a preliminary understanding of how tourism stages shape the perception of residents on community well-being. Originality/value: The findings provide insights into one type of domestic tourism, the community market, which is a common tourist attraction in Thailand. Community markets have not been particularly investigated in previous literature. This study is also among a handful works which apply the tourism life cycle as a moderating role to investigate the perception of residents towards the economic, cultural and environmental impacts on community well-being.