Exploring how to understand resident sentiment in tourism

Understanding Resident Experience can help Visit Wales provide valuable insight at the national level into the impact our policy decisions have on people, and how changes in visitor behaviour impact people living in those areas. At the Regional and Local Authority level this type of intelligence can help inform investments, strategic planning, and on the ground operations leading to shorter delays between communication of problems and implementation of solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to:

• present findings from the literature currently available on resident sentiment in relation to tourism
• present a case study of a location that has successfully deployed a resident attitude measurement approach
• present findings from a round of stakeholder interviews conducted to ascertain desirable factors for a Visit Wales approach to measuring resident sentiment