Events and Tourism Development within a Local Community: The Case of Winchester (UK)

Tourism as an industry has many kinds of impacts on destinations and their communities. The presence of tourismcould create the conditions for an economic development but in the same way produce negative effect (crowding out) and externalities (the Janus-face character). Between the different actors inside the tourist destination, there are the local community which could endure the pressure of tourism. In some cases, this pressure reduces the wellbeing of the residents. The present research paper focuses on how activities like events and tourism impact on community well-being. Winchester (England), a Special Interest Tourism and Event (SITE), is used as a case study. The data are collected using an on-line interview and they are elaborated usingmultivariate techniques and ordinal regression analysis. The results of the study reveal a close relation between the level of happiness of the local residents and their perception of the tourismindustry and event development. Local residents inWinchester are perceiving the tourismindustry and events rather positively as they believe it supports their culture and the local economy and job in particular. Our first overall conclusion is that there is a relationship between the residents' happiness and tourism/event perception. Moreover, our findings support what claimed by several scholars that tourism specialisation improves the residents quality of life (QOL). The present study has not shown the direction of the influence but according to previous research it is the level of happiness of the local residents that determines their perception of the tourism industry and event development and not the other way around. The second finding of the study reveals that SITE destinations have a high potential in terms of contributing to the local residents' happiness and subsequently visitors. Our third and final conclusion is that, when the benefits of tourismand events are higher than the cost, local residents and are likely to be supportive of the activity.