Measuring the Influence of Residents’ Attitude and Empowerment for Intelligent Decision Making to Improve Heritage Tourism; A Case of Mardan, Pakistan

Abstract

This paper explores the influence of residents’ attitude and empowerment on heritage tourism development in UNESCO declared destinations in Mardan; Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa, Pakistan. The three destinations of Jamal Garhi, Shahbaz Garhi and Takht Bhai are studied using statistical approaches. To measure the perception of local people, 384 self-administered questionnaires were filled from the local people. 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree was used to collect data. In order to conduct this research; KMO and Chronbach alpha tests were used to measure validity and internal consistency of questionnaire respectively. Correlation and regression statistical tools were used to measure the relationship. Moreover, ANOVA is used to measure the significance of relationship. The residents’ attitude is measured in terms of emotional solidarity. On other hand residents’ empowerment is evaluated using; psychological empowerment, social empowerment and political empowerment. The results show that residents attitude and empowerment have overall positive significant relationship with heritage tourism development.This paper aims to raise the voice of the local people to the higher authorities. Artificial intelligence and neural networks can be applied as decision making tool.For policy consideration, attention from the provincial and federal government is required to involve the local people in decision making.