Development and validation of the new resident empowerment through Tourism Scale: RETS 2.0
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Date
2024
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elservier
Abstract
This study developed a new version of the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale - the RETS 2.0 by
integrating two new dimensions of empowerment – economic and environmental empowerment – that the
original RETS left off. The RETS 2.0 also abbreviates the original RETS to three items per a construct, reducing
response burden, and opening up space for measuring different antecedents and outcomes of empowerment. The
RETS 2.0 was empirically tested and validated in the small island destinations of Boa Vista and Sal, Cape Verde
following Churchill’s (1979) and Rossiter’s (2002) three-stage mix-method scale development approach. After
demonstrating convergent validity, nomological validity was demonstrated by all dimensions being significantly
correlated with support for tourism. However, in the test of predictive validity, only psychological, economic,
and environmental empowerment were found to be significant predictors of support for tourism. The RETS 2.0 is
proposed as a holistic and parsimonious five-dimension scale that assesses resident’s empowerment towards
sustainable tourism development
Description
Tourism Management 104 (2024) 104915
Keywords
RETS 2.0; Resident empowerment; Support for sustainable tourism development; Scale development; Cape Verde