Abstract

Host population support for tourism development has attracted the attention of researchers in tourism studies. Given the importance of understanding local community support for tourism development, limitations in understanding their priority and lack of a socio-cultural model of support for tourism, this study attempted to examined Residents’ Attitudes Towards Tourism Development. Case Study: Limbe Municipality. Specially it seeks to examine residents’ attitudes towards various forms of tourism development in Limbe, investigate factors influencing residents’ attitudes and analyses the implications of residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Limbe. In order to achieve the study objective a sample of 200 Residents were selected randomly to participate in the study by means of a structure questionnaire. Data was collected inputted and analyzed using SPSS (21.0) were descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage distribution of variable was obtained.  Findings revealed that the major form of tourism activities in the community were beach tourism, cultural tourism, sport tourism and eco-tourism development. The study also concluded that major economic factors of tourism development were that tourism has created number of jobs in the community, which lead to increase in personal income of local residents. Socio-cultural factors revealed that tourism has brought in a lot of cultural activities in the communities, leading to change in life style and opportunities to restore and protect historical structures. The study however, concluded that overall, resident attitudes have a significant relationship towards tourism development in Limbe community. Therefore, it is suggested that government and tourism authority members, make residents aware of tourism development efforts, as well as potential benefits of tourism through awareness campaigns or local exhibitions.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Tourism has been seen as an important element of global development, with government officials of Developing Countries in particular seeing it as an important strategy as their nations become increasingly more industrialized (Harrill, 2004). Recent studies have found that tourism dollars not only impact the country as a whole but also benefit individual communities through job opportunities and wages and improved public infrastructure (Ko & Stewart 2002, Lee 2013, Ribeiro, Valle, & Silva 2013, Sinclair-Maragh & Gurso 2016, Stylidis & Terzidou 2014). While local residents at many destinations experiencing the advantages of tourism for the first time, they are also beginning to realize that these benefits are accompanied by disadvantages (Lankford & Howard 1986, Ko & Stewert 2002). Specifically, even though tourism can lead to economic development, it can also lead to environmental deterioration and negative social and cultural impacts on the community (Choi & Sirakaya, 2006).

The tourism industry may directly influence the quality of life of the residents in the local community, impacting their happiness as well as the use and conservation of their natural resources. The negative impacts may result in local hostility towards tourists, which in turn may lead to a decline in the numbers of visitors to a destination. Some tourism activities can even cease because of the residents’ unfriendly reactions to tourism growth (Sharpley, 2014). Successful tourism development, thus, depends on maintaining a good relationship between the tourists, residents, governments and private business owners in the community. From the locals’ perspective, this success on the residents believing that the tourism benefits outweigh the disadvantages. For this reason, tourism planners have been increasingly investigating how the public perceives tourism as such research on local residents’ attitudes towards tourism can help them develop policies that maximize the positive impacts and minimize the negative impacts. Specifically, tourism planners have looked for strategies that mitigate the negative effects of tourism development. The concept of sustainability or sustainable tourism development strategies have been the focus of many research (Choi & Sirakaya, 2006). However, the attitude of a community can affect tourism development negatively or positively based on the benefits and losses they will derive from it, and the local community will have a more favorable attitude towards tourism development provided they perceive a positive outcome from their relationship with tourists and tourism activity. Worthy of note is the fact that, individuals who stand to gain personally from tourism also perceive greater economic benefit and fewer negative social and environmental impacts arising from tourism development than those who do not. Basically it is essential that community residents have a positive attitude towards tourism development to attract infrastructure, create employment opportunities, and build entrepreneurial mindset and conservation of cultural heritage, (Sandra, et al, 2014). On the other hand, community residents that display negative attitude towards tourism development transmit their feelings to tourists, who, in turn, are likely to be reluctant to visit destinations where they feel unwelcome.

Over recent decades the attention for sustainable development and research on the sustainability   aspects of tourism growth has been rising. The wide variety of sustainability studies in the tourism sector prove the sense of urgency and the importance that has been given to the subject matter. In recent years more and more destinations decide to protect their natural resources, their inhabitants and heritage sites against an overload of tourists. Few studies are however identified, that focus on tourism-resident impacts in tourism destinations, and those studies are often little substantiated. Only recently has the attention of researchers and policy makers been drawn to the issue of sustainable tourism development in destinations. Tourism researchers have also neglected urban tourism even though many tourism takes place there with a rapid growth. It will also be of interest to test the influence of residents’ attitude as far as tourism development is concern and to investigate their perception towards tourism development within the area.

Despite the threat of overcrowded tourist places and stories about potential negative impact, the dynamics of tourism affect the future of most natural and heritage sites in many ways. Both good and bad. Decent and sustainable planning strategy building and good city management can lead to the achievement of sustainable tourism development objectives. It should be noted that there are four most important stakeholder groups in tourism sustainability context, there are; tourists, the tourism sector, the inhabitants (residents) and the government. (Yang, J., Ryan, C., Zhang, L. 2013).

Although tourism has increasingly been regarded as a vehicle of development in developing countries and has taken a dominant role in most countries, however it may threaten the indigenous culture and life style and incur enormous cost on the host community. There is need for attention to be drawn on the impacts of tourism which could enable how the residents of the local community perceived tourism. For instance, (Andereck & Vogt 2000), holds the view that, understanding the local residents’ perception of tourism impacts could be taken into account as an effective factor to engage them actively in the planning stage of sustainable tourism development in order to achieve sustainable tourism development. Moreover, according to (Vargas-Sanchez, A., Plaza-Mejia, M.D.L.A., & Porras-Bueno, N., 2011). Understanding residents’ attitude toward tourism development leads to minimize the negative impacts in addition to maximizing the support for tourism initiatives.  Furthermore, (Nunkoo & Ramissoon 2012) claimed that local population’s perception of tourism impacts is required to be considered during the preliminary process of tourism policy making and planning in the host community. Thus, sustainable tourism planning inevitably requires host community participation and support at all stages of development and one way to engage them at the beginning stages of the planning process is to understand their attitudes toward tourism development and their perceptions of tourism developmental impacts.

In order to stimulate tourism development in Limbe municipality, it is vital to gain the cooperation of a number of stakeholders, particularly destination community, as well as public agencies, tourism agents and promoters, and tourists themselves. In addition, it is essential to take into account the perceptions and attitudes of local residents when designing tourism development policies. This research is justified in that more effective tourism development models can be designed if we know the reasons why residents give or withhold their support for tourism development in their local community/ municipality. Further, it is important to focus on the conflicts of interest that may arise between local residents and the authorities responsible for local tourism development plans as it will otherwise help to offer quality tourism that enhances perceived benefits and reduces the negative impacts of tourism, (Gursoy, D. & D.G. Rutherford 2010). With a view of involving local residents in tourism planning, it is essential that residents have a positive attitude towards tourism development in their community/municipality. When this is not the case, unsatisfied, apathetic or unhappy residents will ultimately transmit their feelings to tourists, who, in turn, are likely to be reluctant to visit destinations where they feel unwelcome. Moreover, the local residents will be unwilling to work in the tourism industry, there will be fewer entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives, and resident-tourist interactions will also very likely be negative, (Díaz & Gutiérrez 2010). In short, given that resident behavior is an essential aspect of the tourism product, the ultimate goal is to understand and subsequently manage residents’ attitudes and seek support for the areas of tourism development model, (Díaz & Gutiérrez 2010).

1.2 Statement of the problem

In recent years, tourism has become one of the most important industries around the world. After years of tourism industry development and the exploitation of increasing numbers of new destinations, the impacts of tourism development have been attracting more attention. The impacts may be short or long term; direct or indirect; local, national, or global; and positive or negative (Hunter & Green, 1995). To begin with, the economic benefit, as the greatest positive impact, is stressed by the tourism industry. Through tourism impacts ranges from environmental, social and economic. The focus has always been placed on tourism’s economic effects rather than its sociocultural and environmental impacts during the practice of tourism development and management (Su et al., 2005). Nevertheless, a series of negative impacts could be predicted in this economy-oriented concept; similar cases can be found all over the world (Theobald, 2001). For this situation, the idea of sustainable tourism development is proposed. It can be argued that the concept of sustainable tourism development aims to strike a balance between socio-cultural, economic, and environmental impacts as far as possible.

Obviously, studying the local residents’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes is one way for researchers to obtain information about tourism impacts. As the directly affected group and immediate participants, residents are more sensitive to tourism’s impacts and benefits. They could make a relatively proper assessment of the current tourism development. In other words, long-term and successful development of tourism is dependent on the local community’s attitude towards tourism and tourists, and therefore it should be developed according to the host community’s needs and desires (Andriotis, 2005), because the community attitude is essential for visitor satisfaction and repeat visitation (Sheldon & Abenoja, 2001; Swarbrooke, 1993). It has been recognized that the perception of residents of the impact of tourism is essential in providing valuable input for dealing with the strategic managerial decisions, marketing, and operation of existing and future programs and projects (Lankford, 2001). It has been widely recognized that tourism development is a double-edged sword for host communities (Wang et al. 2006). Not only does it generate benefits, but it also generates costs (Jafari, 2001).  Depending on the amount of benefits and costs that residents receive from tourism, they have different opinions about tourism’s influence on their community.

 

A number of researchers have found that residents’ attitudes towards tourism impacts are heterogeneous, that is diverse and far from homogeneous (Gu & Wong, 2006). That could be interpreted as, in a certain destination, some residents recognize tourism’s costs as greater than its benefits while others feel that tourism’s benefits are greater than its costs. Therefore, the problem confronting this research is to investigate residents’ attitudes towards tourism development a case study of Limbe municipality.

 

1.3 Research Questions

1. How are residents’ attitudes towards various forms of tourism development in Limbe?
2. What factors influence residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Limbe?
3. What are the implications of resident’s attitudes toward tourism development in Limbe?
4. How can positive residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Limbe be fostered?

1.4 Research Objectives

1.4.1. General objectives

To examine residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Limbe

1.4.2. Specific objectives

1. To examine residents’ attitudes towards various forms of tourism development in Limbe
2. To investigate factors influencing residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Limbe
3. To analyse the implications of residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Limbe
4. To suggest relevant measures to foster positive residents’ attitudes to tourism development in Limbe