Tourism-Driven Mobilities: Scale Development Approach in Postwar Growth Setting in Sri Lanka

Mobilities discourse, regardless of its vital significance in day-to-day life, is under examined. It draws researchers' attention at theoretical level showing significant absence of empirical studies. The absence of a scale to measure tourism driven mobilities (TDM) hinders quantitative empirical work. This study focuses on developing and validating a scale to measure TDM from the resident perspective at a fast-growing postwar tourist destination. Item generation was conducted in several stages to ensure vigorous measurement of subjects. The questionnaire was fielded using multistage sampling to collect 1,135 responses in three stages at Dambulla and Sigiriya UNESCO world heritage zones. A confirmatory factor analysis succeeded 26 items with 5 dimensions in the final scale explaining a total of 84 percent variance of TDM. Governance and capital were identified as key mobility stimuli based on factor loadings. The article proposes a scale to measure TDM from local residents' perspective replenishing mobilities literature. The scale sets new methodological directions in tourism mobility research. The TDM scale requisites further validation to establish generalizability.