Abstract:
This thesis discusses the involvement and participation of local communities in tourism
development in Tanzania using a case study of local communities in Barabarani village, Mto wa Mbu, Arusha. To explore this research topic, the thesis examines three key concepts: community participation in the tourism development decision-making process; community participation in the sharing of tourism benefits; and the contribution of tourism development to poverty alleviation. To achieve these systematically, the research is guided by five inter-related research questions: (1) what are the views of local people towards community involvement in tourism development; (2) what are appropriate roles of local people in tourism development; (3) to what extent do local people participate in the tourism development decision-making process; (4) to what extent have tourism businesses developed benefit-sharing schemes; and (5) what are the views of the local
people on the contribution of tourism development towards poverty reduction. To gain a rich understanding of the context of the research, the thesis employs a case study approach, which enables: investigation at the community level to bring together perspectives from the grass-root level, where little research on this topic has been done; involvement of multiple stakeholders that explores perspectives from a range of stakeholders (ordinary members of the community, decision-makers within the community, tourism professionals, tourism businesses and NGOs); and the use of multiple methods (household survey, interviews, field observations, document analysis, and informal discussions). Such an approach improves the validity of the findings and successfully addresses the central research questions. Both quantitative and qualitative data generated from these techniques are analysed, integrated and compared, and are used to complement each other. Based on the findings obtained from multiple methods, this research concludes that local people wish to play a role in the tourism development decision-making process. In general, local people want to see decisions about tourism development in their area made jointly by government officials and local leaders in consultation with the local community. They also want to be involved in the sharing of tourism benefits. Tourism businesses have developed benefit-sharing schemes that favour local people to access tourism benefits. These schemes include local employment, local capacity building, and
sharing tourism profits with the wider community. Tourism development is contributing positively towards poverty alleviation, and has made improvement on accessibility, prices of goods and services, employment, entrepreneurial training, income-generating projects, household incomes and general quality of life though the extent of contribution vary from one aspect to another.
