Tourism and Perceived Cultural Loss in the Cook Islands: A Comparative Study Pre and Post COVID Pandemic

Abstract

Tourism is the dominant economic sector in the Cook Islands, where Māori culture, Māori language, dance, and community life are central attractions for visitors. This close connection between culture and tourism has raised concerns that packaging culture for tourists may lose its lived meaning. Specifically, the sequence of long-term growth, a sudden COVID-19 border closure, and a strong recovery to record visitor arrival levels offers a unique opportunity to examine those perceptions, and no previous study has compared residents’ perceptions before and after the major disruption. This study explores how residents of the Cook Islands perceive tourism-related cultural loss and whether their perceptions changed between the 2019 (pre-COVID) and 2023 (post-COVID) periods. The study also examines whether the frequency of resident-tourist contact influences perceptions of cultural loss and whether differences in contact frequency explain the changes observed between the two periods. Accordingly, the study uses an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach, based on two phases of the Community Attitude Survey. Initially, 1549 residents closed-ended responses from both pre- and post-COVID periods were analysed using an independent-sample t-test and hierarchical moderated regression to test three hypotheses. Subsequently, 82 residents’ comments were thematically analysed to complement the statistical findings.

The findings indicate a slight increase in perceived cultural loss post-COVID compared to pre-COVID, though in both periods, most residents still leaned towards disagreeing that tourism negatively impacts their culture. Both of these patterns, including the amount of loss residents perceived and how sharply it rose, depend on how often residents interact with tourists. Residents who frequently interacted with tourists perceived less cultural loss than those with less contact, yet it was the same high-contact residents whose perception of loss slightly increased after the borders reopened. Resident comments offer insight into these patterns: while Cultural Pride was the most common theme across all comments, it was voiced less frequently post-COVID, and concerns about commodification of culture and visitors’ disregard for residents grew more pronounced after the borders reopened.

This study contributes insight into how residents in the Cook Islands perceive tourism’s cultural effect, an area that has been less explored. By analysing residents’ perceptions before and after border closures, the study shows that the frequency with which residents encounter tourists in daily life shapes the difference in perception between the two periods. The study also reveals that contact frequency operates in two ways at once: residents who encounter tourists most often perceive lower overall perceived cultural loss, and are also more sensitive to tourism changes. Since residents in frequent contact with tourists are the earliest to sense changes in tourism encounters, and their perceptions influence their support for tourism, understanding these changes is important for managing tourism’s growth.