Maruyama Naho

While gender equality and empowerment are core components of sustainable tourism, most of the literature has approached the concepts from qualitative perspectives, thus limiting the ability to empirically test for empowerment discrepancies between men and women. With this gap in mind, this study sought to test the widely held notion that empowerment
discrepancies exist between men and women in tourism development. Discrepancies in psychological, social and political empowerment were tested for using the 12-item Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale (RETS). The RETS was administered across five sample populations, with
results revealing that gender discrepancies were present, but surprisingly, not in the direction suggested in previous literature. In all three US samples, there was evidence that women were more likely to perceive themselves
being empowered than men. The results from the two Japanese samples did not find any significant differences, which is of interest because Japan is traditionally seen a very patriarchal society. Applications of the RETS can be paired with qualitative research to better understand empowerment success stories and then to apply these best practices to other destinations
where empowerment discrepancies are present. Future applications of the RETS are suggested to help initiate “gender mainstreaming” within the sustainable tourism literature.

While resident empowerment has been a central aspect of the sustainable tourism literature, difficulties of putting the concept into practice have been noted given the heterogeneous nature of communities. “Community” is often divided by kinship, age, gender and ethnicity, and such division may influence the perceptions of empowerment. The goal of this study was to better understand heterogeneous perceptions of empowerment by administering the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale within the community of Oizumi, Japan. Oizumi has the highest concentration of Brazilian immigrants in Japan, and the town has embraced “ethnic neighborhood tourism” centered on Brazilian culture as a strategy for economic development. Oizumi's demographic makeup allowed for testing differences in perceived empowerment between members of the dominant ethnic group (Japanese) and members of the ethnic minority group (Japanese Brazilians). Analysis of 650 completed questionnaires revealed that Brazilians felt more psychologically and socially empowered than Japanese residents, indicating a shift in the balance of power between the ethnic groups. Results also revealed that the political dimension of empowerment was rated relatively low among both groups, suggesting a general lack of opportunities to participate in the planning process. Implications for both practice and theory are presented.

With the empirical research on resident empowerment in its infancy, this study sought to add to the scant literature by testing the cross-cultural validity of the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale (RETS) within the town of Oizumi, Japan. Such a destination was chosen because it provided a culture vastly different from the original rural Virginia, U.S. sample across Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) performed on the Oizumi sample (n = 456) demonstrated that the RETS and its factors of psychological, social, and political empowerment were construct valid and shared the same psychometric properties originally found in Boley and McGehee's study (2014). These findings from the Oizumi, Japan sample support the international applicability of the RETS and provide managers with a valid tool for tracking the effectiveness of their marketing and management efforts aimed at increasing resident empowerment.