Factor analysis of local residents’ perceptions towards social impact of tourism in Nepal

Abstract

Tourism, apart from being perceived as an economic factor, is a social component and it prevails subjectively and intangibly in the community. With this view, the purpose of this study is to identify and examine the local residents’ perceptions towards social impact of tourism in Nepal by conducting face to face field survey of 601 respondents from certain tourist destinations with response rate 91.76%.Data was collected from local respondents depending on five point Likert scale. Factor analysis has been used to analyze the collected data. The factor analysis found that 60.8% total variance of perception of residents has been explained by positive impact of tourism and 60.4% total variance has been explained by negative impact of tourism. Thus, the result indicates positive perception of majority of the respondents towards social impacts of tourism.