Behavior of tourists in archaeological sites (the case of Jordan)

Abstract

One of the main problems facing the archaeological and heritage sites is the damage and negative impacts caused by the tourism development and visitors behavior. Archaeological and heritage sites are resources of a special importance; they provide with the necessary information about the past, they give identity and pride to societies, and they have an economic benefit characterized by expenditures of visitors to these sites through the business of tourism. The fact that such resources are not renewable, makes loosing them then a serious problem. Losing archaeological and heritage sites is caused by several factors, such as natural phenomena, tourism development and human behavior. This paper deals with the factor regarding the behavior of tourists while visiting archaeological sites. The main objective is to understand the tourists' behavior by applying models from cognitive hierarchy, which proved to be an appropriate theoretical approach in previous research. Four archaeological sites in Jordan were chosen by the author to be the study areas. These sites differ in terms of their location from urban centers, size, facilities and amenities provided in them. The groups of domestic and international tourists were selected randomly in these sites, respondents were asked to fill a survey after their visit, whether within the sites or in rest houses and visitors' centers close to them. The sample of 512 individuals was gathered during July 2004. There were different kinds of analyses applied in this study, there were descriptive and reliability analysis, comparisons between the different groups of the study, factor analysis and structure equation modeling. The study focuses on the explanation of behavior by norms, which are mediating the relationship between behavior and other variables. The study has shown that there is a relationship between norms and behavior, but it was not strong if compared to previous studies, such results might be related to not having well established norms regarding the problems of these sites, another factor might be the lack of knowledge about the real value of archaeological sites among different segments of societies. Such results initiate the necessity to increase the awareness among the individuals; this considers both archaeological and historical significance, as well as the acceptable behaviors to be taken while navigating in archaeological sites. Such objectives require then appropriate techniques for interpretation, and enforcement of laws and regulations in these sites, and not less important, to provide the sites with appropriate kinds of development and amenities, which controls the movement of tourists with providing a high quality experience, and have less impacts on these sites at the same time.