Do residents really care to be empowered? Prioritizing empowerment through importance performance analysis

While there is near unanimous agreement that for tourism to be considered sustainable, residents need to be empowered, few researchers have asked residents which dimensions of empowerment should be prioritized. This research seeks to fill this gap and give residents a voice in sharing their empowerment priorities by conducting an Importance Performance Analysis using the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale within the nature-based tourism destination of Brevard, located in Transylvania County, NC, USA. Results found residents to be generally apathetic towards empowerment, with psychological, social, political, and economic empowerment all falling in the “Low Priority” quadrant when using a scale-centered approach. However, when using a data-centered technique, “Economic Empowerment” and “Political Empowerment” fell into the “Concentrate Here” quadrant. However, “Social Empowerment” landed in the “Possible Overkill” quadrant, and “Psychological Empowerment” landed in the “Keep up the Good Work” quadrant. Results suggest that tourism managers within Brevard should focus on coordinated efforts to improve resident involvement and access to decision-making, and better distribute or highlight the economic benefits tourism brings to the county. If researchers and practitioners really care about empowering residents, more research is needed to identify residents’ empowerment priorities and benchmark how well destinations are performing on those priorities. • IPA used to help see which dimensions of empowerment should be prioritized. • Including importance with performance allows residents to voice empowerment priorities. • Research shows residents think economic and political Empowerment need improvement. • Psychological empowerment found to be in the ‘Keep Up the Good Work” quadrant.