Forces Driving Purchasing Behaviour of Tourists Hotels Along Tourist-Agricultural Supply Chain in Zanzibar

Abstract

This paper examined forces driving tourists' hotels purchasing behaviour. The results revealed that the tourist hotels consider several factors before deciding to source vegetables and fruits from smallholder farmers. The most prominent factors for the tourist hotels to source vegetables and fruits were consistent quality, regular supply, compliance to legal practices, and hygiene conditions. Interestingly, proximity to the tourists' hotels and competitive price of fruits and vegetables were not among important driving forces contributing to the choice of sourcing points. This suggests that the tourist hotels are willing to pay premium prices so long they are assured of quality and regular supply, comply to legal practices and observe hygiene conditions. With the fact that smallholder farmers lack access to appropriate market information, produce at subsistence level and lack logistic infrastructure this call for a change of mind-set among smallholder farmers and position strategically to take advantage of emerging markets.

Factors Influencing Tourism-Horticulture Linkage among Smallholder Farmers in Zanzibar

“…Zanzibar's Agriculture sector is mainly dominated by small-scale subsistence farming, with low productivity of land, labour and other inputs (Bengesi & Abdalla, 2018;RGZ, 2010). According to ZATI (2009), Zanzibar typically consumes more staple foods than it produces (banana, sweet potatoes, yams, maize), and for majority of these staples, Zanzibar has almost always been in deficits.…”

“…In line with this argument, Rueegg (2009) postulate that the tourism industry offers opportunities to stimulate local agricultural development through backward linkages that allow local farmers to supply food needs of tourism establishments such as hotels and lodges in their locality. Creating and strengthening linkages between the tourism and horticulture especially food sector can provide an adjacent market for locally produced horticultural food and beverage products (Bengesi and Abdalla, 2018;Boyne et al, 2001).…”

“…However, the linkage between tourism industry and local horticultural produce suppliers in Zanzibar is not clear despite the positive intentions of the government and other key stakeholders to promote tourism and horticultural sector (Bengesi & Abdalla, 2018;RGZ, 2010). Farmers, particularly horticultural crops growers, are largely disconnected from the local tourism industry despite the fact that tourism consumes large proportion of fruits and vegetables as products of horticultural sector (RGZ, 2004).…”

“…The tourism accounts for over 51% of the island's GDP and over 60% of all approved foreign direct investments in Zanzibar (Bengesi and Abdalla, 2018;MFEA, 2011) and contribute to local economy through provision of market for locally produced horticultural crops and products such as fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs and poultry meat (RGZ, 2004;RGZ, 2010). This suggests that tourism is one of the pillars of economy and improvement of livelihood in Zanzibar.…”

“…Among these initiatives include the adoption of the Zanzibar Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty commonly known as MKUZA which advocates for inter-sectoral linkages (RGZ, 2010) and other government policies related to tourism development, such as the Zanzibar Tourism Master Plan (URT, 2003) and Zanzibar Tourism Policy Statement (RGZ, 2004). The initiatives carry the assumption that the economic benefits of the tourism sector will stimulate the development of other economic sectors such as horticulture through increased demand for local commodities (Anderson and Juma, 2011;Bengesi and Abdalla, 2018).…”