Racial Differences in the Perceived Attractiveness of Tourism Destinations, Interests, and Cultural Resources

This study of a stratified random sample of 213 households in a Southern metropolitan area investigated black-white racial differences in perceived attractiveness of tourism destination characteristics. Respondents were asked to rank three sets of color photographs, representing different types of destinations, interests, and cultural resources, from most attractive to least attractive. Utilizing Spearman's Coefficient of Rank Correlation, blacks and whites were compared to determine the degree of association between their rankings. Strong positive correlations between overall black and white rankings were found for all three study characteristic areas. Some significant differences, however, were shown on the individual categories in each area using chi-squared tests.