Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Community loyalty 
While loyalty to a community was measured in different ways such as length of residence (Liu and Var, 
1986; McCool and Martin, 1994) and willingness to attract more tourists (Chen, 2000), in this study the question 
was posed regarding the preference of residents to living only in New Orleans and not elsewhere in the U.S. Indeed, 
Louisiana is the third ranked state in the U.S. for the percentage of people living in the state of their birth at 80% (JS 
Online, 2006). Results of this study showed that almost 40% of Generation Y residents agreed or strongly agreed 
(loyals) that they would prefer not to live anywhere else while approximately another 40% disagreed or strongly 
disagreed (non-loyals) with the statement. T-Tests were conducted to examine the differences between means of 
loyal and non-loyals on the Tourism Attitude scale and the Tourism development scale and there were no significant 
differences (Table 3). 
Ethnicity
The mean scores on the Tourism Attitude scale and the Tourism Development scales of African American 
and White Generation Y residents were compared using T- Tests. Significant differences were found in both cases. 
Whites were more favorably disposed in Tourism Attitude ( t=-4.58; p<0.01) and Tourism Development (t=-2.07; 
p<0.05) than African Americans. This is contrary to Liu and Var’s (1986) study of native Hawaiian residents that 
found no significant differences. 

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