Title of Paper
Testing for Gender Discrepancies Using the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale
Abstract (150 Words)
While gender equality and empowerment are core components of sustainable tourism, literature has largely approached these concepts qualitatively. This study sought to empirically test the widely held notion that empowerment discrepancies exist between men and women in tourism development by examining differences in psychological, social, and political empowerment through the 12-item Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale (RETS). The RETS was administered across five unique sample populations (three rural counties in Virginia, USA and two distinct cultural groups in Oizumi, Japan). Independent samples t-tests for each of the five samples revealed that women were more likely to perceive themselves empowered through tourism than men in all three U.S. samples. The two Japanese samples did not suggest any significant differences, which is of interest given Japan’s traditional patriarchal society.
Testing for Gender Discrepancies Using the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale
While gender equality and empowerment are core components of sustainable tourism, literature has largely approached these concepts qualitatively. This study sought to empirically test the widely held notion that empowerment discrepancies exist between men and women in tourism development by examining differences in psychological, social, and political empowerment through the 12-item Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale (RETS). The RETS was administered across five unique sample populations (three rural counties in Virginia, USA and two distinct cultural groups in Oizumi, Japan). Independent samples t-tests for each of the five samples revealed that women were more likely to perceive themselves empowered through tourism than men in all three U.S. samples. The two Japanese samples did not suggest any significant differences, which is of interest given Japan’s traditional patriarchal society.