Exploring the relationships among tourism involvement, residents' empowerment, quality of life and their support for sustainable tourism development

While the term "empowerment" is frequently employed in studies on resident attitudes, it is unclear how this concept is related to others. It is essential to comprehend the components that empower and the factors that empower effects. In order to investigate the effects of tourist involvement on residents' psychological, social, and political empowerment as well as their quality of life and, ultimately, their support for sustainable tourism development, the current research modeled the data of 253 residents from a popular Indian tourist destination. Covariance based structural equation modeling analysis discovered psychological empowerment as most vital antecedent of residents' support for sustainable tourism development followed by social empowerment. Additionally, it was discovered that inhabitants' quality of life was most significantly influenced by political empowerment, which was followed by psychological empowerment. There was no statistically significant relationship observed between social empowerment and locals' quality of life. Limitations and possible directions for future research are discussed, along with theoretical and managerial implications.