The Mediating Effect of Quality of Life on Tourism Impact and Support Attitude in Alishan Tribes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was aimed to analyze the effect of indigenous people’s perceived impact of tourism development on tribal quality of life and the support attitude toward tourism development. The research subjects were indigenous people who were at least 20 years old and came from one of eight Alishan tribes in Taiwan. This study conducted an investigation by random sampling, a total of 850 questionnaires were distributed and obtained 827 valid questionnaires. The valid return rate was 97.29%. Statistical analysis was performed on the valid questionnaires using descriptive statistics and partial least squares (PLS). According to the analytical result, Alishan indigenous people feel the negative environmental impact brought by tourism is the highest, but in terms of quality of life, they also maintain of nature and culture. When the positive economic, environmental, and sociocultural impact of tourism is higher, tribal quality of life and indigenous people’s support attitude toward tourism development will be more significant; however, when the negative economic, environmental, and sociocultural tourism impact is higher, tribal quality of life will be lower and indigenous people will tend to resist tourism development. Quality of life was found to be a moderator between tourism impact and support attitude toward development. This study proposed suggestions for indigenous tribes and the government to develop the tourism sector and introduced specific research directions for future tribal tourism researchers.