Evaluating the impacts of amenity-based tourism on human capital and culture in two Appalachian Ohio counties
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Date
2025-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Amenity-based tourism is often championed as a solution for economically lagging places with natural assets to provide development and increased employment opportunities to residents without putting a strain on local ecosystems. Appalachian Ohio is a region currently investing in amenity-based tourism development to bolster the hospitality and service industries in the absence of extraction and decline of manufacturing in the region. This thesis is an undergraduate inquiry using the Community Capitals Framework created by Emery and Flora (2006) to understand the observed impacts of amenity-based tourism from community leadership. This project is a comparative case study between neighboring counties, Ross and Hocking County, Ohio, and uses a mixed method analysis to determine how the development of amenity-based tourism has impacted human and cultural capital in their communities respectively. Researching changes in cultural and human capital can give insight to how local people in economically lagging communities respond to this kind of regional development. Studying amenity-based development can also uncover lacking areas of these community improvement schemes to better prevent negative impacts in the future to strengthen local economies and maintain a sense of identity. This study has found, in the case of Hocking County, that the surge of popularity in their local amenities is viewed as a threat to community culture, however it has supported small businesses in the area. Local leadership acknowledges, however, that amenity-based development has not brought jobs comparable with other industries. Ross County has had less development to bolster amenity-based tourism in the area, but those interviewed were optimistic about the potential impacts. Future research should evaluate communities with long established amenity-based tourism development to observe best practices in maintaining community character and creating diverse economies that can support the local workforce.
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Keywords
sustainable development, Appalachia, amenity-based tourism, community development