Interaction between Tourists and Residents: Influence on Tourism Development

One of the crucial things for achieving and maintaining sustainable tourism development in a destination is to create a positive interaction between residents and foreign tourists. The quality of interaction between tourists and residents contributes to both tourists experience and perception of the visited destination and acceptance and tolerance of tourists by residents. Thus, the aim of the study is to analyse influence of tourists behaviour on residents perception of tourists, their acceptance and social interaction between them in the destination. The research is conducted among residents of, New Delhi and Indore during the year of 2010. The results showed that cultural incidents are very important for the acceptance of tourists by the local residents and that perception of tourists behavior was significantly affected by socio-demographic characteristics of residents.