Residents’ Perception of Tourism Impact, Participation and Support in Destinations under the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Intermediary Role of Government Trust
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
The manuscript entitled Residents’ perception of tourism impact, participation, and support in destinations under the COVID-19 pandemic: The intermediary role of government trust is relevant to the journal's aims and scope. However, the authors must improve part 3.1. Study area by providing a better geographical context with a good map (figure). This will help readers to have a better context.
A graphical scheme of study design should be inserted.
More details about the sampling protocol are needed. How were potential respondents identified? How was the sampling across multiple sites coordinated?
Results and Discussion should be better discussed by comparing them with respect to previous data in the literature
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
General comments
If you are going to use subtitles, you need to add sentence or a few before 2.1, 3.1 etc. However, each subchapter needs to be constructed of at least two paragraphs.
Introduction
You need to restructure this part in a manner that you say why your topic is important, list a lack of research that you paper covers and point out you goal (make it clear to readers what the goal is).
Research hypotheses
I suggest that you use same text from introduction to give a brief theoretical background of your paper and then continue with development of your hypotheses. Since currently this part is only two pages long, there is no need to separate it into three subchapters. You should just connect the paragraphs.
Methods
This chapter should give following information to the readers: operationalization of variables, research design and data analysis (study area is optional). If you have used some data to do research design, you should mention it here. Otherwise, responders’ characteristics should be a part of research chapter.
You do not need to explain what regression is for, you just mention that regression analysis was used and add a reference regarding this analysis. Additionally, you also need to add description regarding factor analysis.
Did you use EFA and then CFA? Were they used on the same sample or? Why did you not use SEM?
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors, thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your manuscript.
The article presents an interesting topic. The overview is clear and well presented. I found that, in the current context, the topic addressed in the paper is certainly important.
ü I think that a chapter related to "Literature Review" would succeed in linking the general information with the specific ones analyzed.
ü The conclusions of the study should address the limitations and opportunities of the study for future research much more clearly so as to provide some guidance on what should follow from their research and findings.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The main aim of this study was to examine the effect of local residents’ perceptions of risks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, benefits of tourism and residents’ participation in it, government trust, and support for tourism. Regarding the authors, I would like to congratulate and thank them for their effort and motivation involved in this research study. The presentation of the research is well documented, with a scientific basis and respects the latest standards regarding the highest level scientific publications. The methodology was chosen correctly. In general, the conclusions support and result from the research and open new directions for future research, and the submitted work essentially exhausts the subject under discussion. However, the authors should extract the proposed conclusions from the discussion section so that there are two separate subsections.
The authors should also complete Author Contributions, as well as possible Funding, Institutional Review Board Statement and Informed Consent Statement. In addition, the bibliography with footnotes should be fully adapted to the references style accepted by MDPI.
Supplementing the manuscript with the above-mentioned issues is the only point that I think needs to be done. I keep my fingers crossed for the final success of the publication, which in my opinion is really good.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 5 Report
The subject of residents and tourism is my oldest line of research and the one in which I have worked most time, so this type of paper is pleasant to read. In general, it is correctly done and quite well referenced. There is little to criticize, although I have several questions to ask the authors:
In point 4.1, the reliability and validity criteria adopted seem a bit low compared to what I am used to, with loadings usually higher than 0.6 in exploratory studies and 0.7 in the rest of the cases.
The most striking aspect of the paper is that Structural Equation Models (SEM) are not used to analyze the causal model of Figure 1. It would result in a shorter and more direct analysis, in my opinion. It would be good if it were indicated in the methodology because the type of analysis finally used has been chosen and not by other types of analysis such as SEM.
A suggestion. The results would be much more visual if the conceptual model of Figure 1 were replicated at the end of the Results section, but only maintaining the significant causal relationships.
Therefore, I consider that the improvements are summarized in a couple of clarifications about the measurement model and the chosen methodology and a suggestion for improvement to more easily visualize the result of the analysis.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the authors for taking into account the reviewer's suggestions for improving the quality of the manuscript.
In my opinion, the work is adequate for publication in the journal Sustainability.
Reviewer 3 Report
I recommend this research manuscript, in its modified and added form, for publication.
