Do Tourists’ Preferences Match the Host Community’s Initiatives? A Study of Sustainable Tourism in One of Africa’s Oldest Conservation Areas

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.

Diversity and Abundance of Avifauna: Implications for Conservation and Ecotourism Development in Suba Forest, Central Ethiopia

“…This is contrary to the report, international tourism receipts earned by world destinations have increased from US$ 1260 billion in 2015 to US$ 1481billion in 2019 [44,49]; and specifically, the contribution of travel and tourism to Ethiopian GDP was growing on average by 8.1% per annum from the year 2014-19 [52]. [47] suggested such a decrease in tourism receipts in the Suba Forest could have resulted from poor infrastructure and service quality of the forest, low availability of public transport for domestic visitors, unavailability of the tourist information centre, lack of promotion and marketing of the destination, and no local involvement and benefit-sharing. Suba Forest is an essential destination of wildlife-based tourism.…”

“…Though the tourist flow data is 15 rudimentary and undiscriminating between the three types of tourists, it is pretty visible how much the number of non-resident foreign tourists has dropped. This might be due to recent political tensions in the country, a massive shift and cancellation of international meetings and conferences (MICE), the complete downfall of vacation tourism as the situation was unsafe for residents and foreigners to travel out of Addis, poor tourist facilities in the forest, and priority given to timber production by the enterprise [47,48]. Furthermore, for the recent collapse in the travel industry in general and Suba Forest in particular, the role of the novel corona virus pandemic, COVID-19, is also not underestimated.…”

Conservation and indigenous peoples’ struggles for livelihoods: Suba Park (Ethiopia)

“…They reinforced the economic extraction of the forest resources by offering concessions to companies (Bekele 2003). Furthermore, they c. 20 km of roads and 24 km of narrow-gauge railway tracks to improve infrastructure for the extraction of forest resources (Merion et al 2018). The socialist revolution removed the imperial regime in 1974, introducing land reform in 1975, which abolished feudal serfdom and allocated usufruct rights to individual farmers.…”

“…However, the PFM was aborted after 2 years of pilot testing as forest and wildlife authorities, namely OFWE, were unwilling to devolve ownership or managerial decision-making power to the local community (Merion 2019). As a result, peasants largely relying on forest products and by-products that were integral to their agriculture livelihoods were not only excluded from ownership or managerial decision-making but also from benefit-sharing schemes, including revenue sharing from forest products and tourism (Merion et al 2018, Merion 2019, Tame 2019). Instead of sharing decision-making power, the narrative of PFM became an instrument for realigning the relationship between OFWE and the local population in Suba.…”

Heterogeneous consumer preferences for local community involvement in nature‐based tourism drive triple‐bottom‐line gains

“…However, benefits from tourism usually flow indirectly to local communities via contracts with third-party operators and employment, while direct engagement of tourists with locals stakeholders is typically more limited in developing countries (Romero-Brito, Buckley, & Byrne, 2016;Sandbrook & Adams, 2012;Walpole & Thouless, 2005). The few studies that have quantitatively examined consumer preferences for attributes related to local communities have shown mixed results, with some demonstrating neutral or even negative views on community benefits from, or involvement in, nature-based tourism (Bush, Colombo, & Hanley, 2009;Chaminuka, Groeneveld, Selomane, & van Ierland, 2012;Dikgang & Muchapondwa, 2014), while others show stronger preferences for local community involvement or benefits (León, de León, Araña, & González, 2015;Tekalign et al, 2018).Stated preference approaches such as discrete choice surveys are a useful tool to quantify consumer preferences for outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism (Boxall & Adamowicz, 2002;di Minin, Fraser, Slotow, & MacMillan, 2013;Naidoo & Adamowicz, 2005;Pröbstl-Haider, Hunt, Rupf, & Haegeli, 2020). These surveys have asked and answered a number of questions that are important both for tourism research and policy, including the design of recreational activities (Boxall & Macnab, 2000), the establishment of new protected areas (Carson, DeShazo, Schwabe, Vincent, & Ahmad, 2015) and the management of wildlife or scenic attributes of particular interest (di Minin et al, 2013).…”