Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Destination Marketing & Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jdmm Research Paper Community-based collaborative tourism planning in islands: A cluster analysis in the context of Costa Smeralda Giacomo Del Chiappa a,b, ⁎ , Marcello Atzeni c , Vahid Ghasemi c a Department of Economics and Business (DiSEA) & CRENoS, University of Sassari, Italy b Senior Research Fellow, School of Tourism & Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, South Africa c Department of Economics and Business, University of Cagliari, Italy ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Community involvement Community integration Exogenous-driven tourism development Heritage proximity Island destinations Italy ABSTRACT This study analyses residents' perceptions and attitudes towards tourism development and community integration in tourism planning in an island tourism destination whose economy is widely influenced by the presence of big external investors. Findings reveal that residents believe that tourism planning should be more sensitive to residents and tradition, and be able to guarantee a higher level of heritage proximity in order to achieve a more indigenous/endogenous-oriented development. Exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analysis were conducted. Four clusters were identified (‘enthusiastics’, ‘moderate supporters’, ‘critics’, and ‘indifferents’), with significant differences in terms of employment reliance on tourism, length of residence, contact with tourists in everyday life, and level of education. Conversely, they did not differ based on gender, age, employment status, or geographical proximity to the tourist area, thus providing some contradictory insights when compared with previous studies. From a theoretical point of view, the findings seem to suggest that studies devoted to the investigation of residents’ view and attitude toward tourism should concentrate more on the personal values of respondents and less on their socio-demographic characteristics, which often render the findings of cluster analysis very site-specific and hard to generalise. Managerial implications are discussed, and suggestions for further research are provided. 1. Introduction It is widely recognised that tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world (UNWTO, 2015). In 2014, it con- tributed approximately 9% to the world's total GDP; further, it has been estimated that international tourist arrivals worldwide will increase by 3.3% per year between 2010 and 2030 to reach 1.8 billion (UNWTO, 2015). Tourism is widely considered as the main vehicle for economic development on islands (e.g. Croes, 2006), with other sectors often being unable to offset any downturn in tourism activity if and when this should occur (Brown & Cave, 2010). Therefore, tourism can poten- tially affect the residents' well-being and quality of life (e.g. Kim, Uysal, & Sirgy, 2013; Woo, Kim, & Uysal, 2015). The main goal in developing tourism is to maximise the positive impacts while minimis- ing the negative impacts to the host community (Ritchie & Inkari, 2006). To ensure that the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental benefits of tourism development outweigh the related costs, and that tourism sustainability can be achieved, collaborative policymaking among local authorities, government agencies, businesses, and host communities is needed (Vernon, Essex, Pinder, & Curry, 2005). This is particularly relevant in the case of islands, where sustainable tourism development asks for a high level of community integration (Chen, 2006) in order to preserve their local identity and the unique natural and cultural resources that they own (e.g. Croes, Lee, & Olson, 2013). Hence, in considering and taking into account residents' views, a development process is needed to obtain their support for tourism projects (Ap, 1992) and is crucial for the sustainability of tourism (Woo et al., 2015) and its long-term success (e.g. Fotiadis, Yeh, & Huan, 2016; Nunkoo & Ramkissoon, 2011). A host community that is positively disposed and hospitable will enhance tourists' experiences (Fredline & Faulkner, 2000; Gursoy, Jurowski, & Uysal, 2002), increase tourists' willingness to revisit the destination (Fridgen, 1991), and make tourists more inclined to spread by word of mouth (both online and offline) a positive image about their destination (Chen, Dwyer, & Firth, 2014), thus significantly helping to position the destination brand (Simpson & Siguaw, 2008). Tourism development on islands is a popular topic in the tourism literature (e.g. Hampton & Christensen, 2007), as is tourism sustain- ability (Oreja-Rodríguez, Parra-López, & Yanes-Estévez, 2008; Yasarata, Altinay, Burns, & Okumus, 2010). Sustainability, especially http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2016.10.005 Received 13 November 2015; Received in revised form 12 October 2016; Accepted 21 October 2016 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: gdelchiappa@uniss.it (G. Del Chiappa), marcelloatzeni@icloud.com (M. Atzeni), Va.ghasemi1@studenti.unica.it (V. Ghasemi). Journal of Destination Marketing & Management xx (xxxx) xxxx–xxxx 2212-571X/ © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Available online xxxx Please cite this article as: Del Chiappa, G., Journal of Destination Marketing & Management (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2016.10.005