Abstract
Involvement of stakeholders in sustainable tourism, particularly in developing countries, is crucial for the success of tourism development. However, its implementation is often criticized for not considering stakeholders’ needs. This study explores tourists’ preferences for tourism activities, designed by local stakeholders, in one of the oldest conserved parks in East Africa—the Menagesha Suba Forest, in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia. The study area is endowed with natural, cultural and historical, yet undeveloped, tourist attractions. The host community benefits little from tourism and is in continual conflict with the park administration. This study aims to provide new insights on potential engagement of stakeholders in sustainable tourism planning. In particular, we explored tourists’ preferences for activities designed by local stakeholders, as well as their preferences concerning the improvement of the park infrastructure. The local community has been engaged in group discussions to design community involvement activities in tourism, while park guest books have been consulted to identify infrastructure improvements suggested by tourists. A survey that embedded a discrete choice experiment was conducted among tourists that visited the Menagesha Suba Forest. Data were analyzed with mixed logit and latent class models. We identified preferences for infrastructure improvement in the park. Tourists’ preferences are heterogeneous and vary with their profile as foreigners, foreign residents, and locals. Furthermore, the study indicates that there is a mismatch between tourists’ preferences and activities designed by the host community for their engagement in tourism. Tourists might be unaware of the importance of such activities for local communities. On the other hand, the findings also imply that increasing host residents’ awareness of tourism and tourists’ preferences is required, prior to tourism activities planning. Hence, sustainable tourism planning and development needs to understand perception gaps between host residents and tourists for its smooth implementation.
Highlights
The tourism industry can contribute to economic growth and job creation, and has the potential to promote social development [1]
The socio-demographic characteristics of the sampled tourists are presented in Table 2. 265 tourists, which accounts for 3.5% of the total annual visitors in the Menagesha Suba Forest participated in the survey. 240 (91%) of them completed the survey. 41.7% of them were local tourists, 40.3% were foreign residents and 18% were foreign tourists
This study explored the potential of sustainable tourism planning with the involvement of stakeholders using the application of a choice experiment in the Menagesha Suba Forest, in the central highlands of Ethiopia
Summary
The tourism industry can contribute to economic growth and job creation, and has the potential to promote social development [1]. The concept has been criticized for its uneven concentration on ecological and economic disciplines, and leaving out the social aspects of sustainability [4,5]. Sustainable tourism requires to address multiple issues, including economic health, satisfying guests and ensuring community well-being [6], but many sustainable tourism policies fail to find a balance between local community developmental needs and local opportunities for tourism development. One needs to identify and understand the interest of all stakeholders, even if not all stakeholders can be involved in the decision making process [7]. Failure to identify the interest of even a single primary stakeholder group may result in the failure of the process of establishing sustainable tourism [8]
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