Title: An exploratory study of attitudes toward tourism on American Indian reservations

Authors: Daniel M. Spencer, John Henry Glover

Addresses: School of Travel Industry Management, University of Hawaii, 2560 Campus Road, George Hall 216, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. ' Center for American Indian Studies, Black Hills State University, 1200 University Street, Unit 9081, Spearfish, SD 57799-9081, USA

Abstract: Tourism development is widely considered a means by which the economies of American Indian reservations (AIRs) can be strengthened. Understanding attitudes toward tourism on AIRs is important to effectively plan for such development. This study contributed to the advancement of such an understanding, drawing upon data from intercept surveys of attendees at American Indian wacipis (pow-wows) in South Dakota, USA. It found that American Indian respondents were generally less sanguine about tourism on AIRs than non-American Indian respondents, that American Indian respondents generally supported tourism on AIRs but such support was by no means universal, that attitudes toward tourism on AIRs were only weakly related to demographic characteristics, that inter-tribal differences in such attitudes existed even among ethnically related Siouan tribes, and that American Indian respondents could be meaningfully disaggregated according to their attitude composites.

Keywords: American Indians; Indian reservations; attitudes; casino gaming; impacts; Native Americans; powwows; wacipis; tourism; USA; United States; tourists; inter-tribal differences; Indian tribes.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2011.040432

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2011 Vol.1 No.2, pp.154 - 172

Published online: 31 Jan 2015 *

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