The most significant change in attitude, they added, was seen in the responses to the statement, “In recent years, the state is becoming overcrowded because of more tourists.”
For the first time in 10 years, more people agreed than disagreed with that statement, representing an increase of 18% over 2019 responses.
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Still, the report showed the majority of residents view tourism generally favorably, just not as much as before.
For the most recent study, the Institute hired people to hand out surveys to Montana residents and collected responses from 1,516 people around the state this past summer.
Residents were asked how they would assess the general or overall behavior of visitors to Montana for the summer of 2020 and then asked them how they would answer those questions for years past. On a scale of 1 to 10, with one serving as the most negative response (rude) and ten serving as the most positive (polite), residents were given a series of behaviors in which to comment. The majority of respondents found visitors during the summer of 2020 to be fairly polite, with 70% selecting either a six or higher for a mean score of 6.71.
But the mean score those respondents gave for tourists when they were asked about past years was 7.17.
Montana residents also scored tourists as less patient and less sensitive to the “Montana way of life”. There was also a discrepancy between 2020 and years past, in the eyes of Montana residents, on tourists environmental responsibility. They gave visitors a mean score of 5.44 this year but had a 5.57 in earlier years.
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