Abstract
This paper aims to reveal the impact of social capital which was empowered by Community Based Tourism projects on the business success of micro and small-scale tourism entrepreneurs (MSSTEs) in rural tourism destinations and to determine is there any distinction of the variation created in the business success by the construct of social capital between the MSSTES who were empowered and who were not empowered. Further, determining of which type of social capital either structural or cognitive does affect highly on the business success was focused. Positivism research approach applied and a sample of MSSTEs in rural tourism destinations from two provinces from Sri Lanka was selected. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used for primary data collection. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested to reveal the impact of social capital on business success. Independent sample T-Test, correlation and multiple regression analysis were applied to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that social capital affect significantly on creating a variance in business success. Both structural and cognitive social capital affect significantly on the business success while structural capital shows more power to create a variance on business success than cognitive social capital. This implies that tangible social capital attributes such as well-functioning of community associations, strong interpersonal and institutional networks, regular gathering, etc. are perceived as very important for business success. Also, cognitive type social capital such as shared vision, values and norms, trustworthiness, equality in sharing resources and benefits, etc. creates a significant impact on the business growth.
Highlights
In the world context, community involvement in tourism businesses is gradually increasing with the demand shifts happened from “Mass Tourism” which focuses on 3Ss concepts (Sun, Sea and Sand) towards “Niche Tourism” which focuses on nature, culture and people
In Sri Lankan context, few researches are available which were focused on social capital aspect of community tourism. Any evidences on such a comparative analysis between the micro and small-scale tourism entrepreneurs (MSSTEs) who were empowered and who were not empowered by any Community Based Tourism (CBT) project as well as which dimensions of social capital affect significantly on business growth cannot be found
H1: There is a significant difference in the impact of social capital on the business success between the MSSTEs who were empowered by a CBT project and the MSSTEs who were not empowered by any CBT project
Summary
Community involvement in tourism businesses is gradually increasing with the demand shifts happened from “Mass Tourism” which focuses on 3Ss concepts (Sun, Sea and Sand) towards “Niche Tourism” which focuses on nature, culture and people. With this movement, many untouched and under-developed areas have been identified as attractive tourism destinations in many developing and least developed countries. Many untouched and under-developed areas have been identified as attractive tourism destinations in many developing and least developed countries Such under-developed remote villages have full of natural resources, diverse nature in culture, life styles, human skills, talents, etc. The developing and least developed countries (LDCs) emphasized that the CBT as a poverty reduction, sustainability improvement and community development tool that strengthens the ability of rural communities to manage tourism resources while ensuring the local community’s participation towards initiating and sustaining the tourism business activities (Dangi & Jamel, 2016; UNWTO, 2017)
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