A SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL NAMIBIA

Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »

INTRODUCTION

Community involvement is often thought of as simply a tool used to involve local people in planning and development. In reality, it is a more complex phenomenon in which individuals voluntarily take action to ’confront opportunities and responsibilities of citizenship‘(Hung, Sirakaya-Turk and Ingram, 2011:280; see also Tosun, 2000). In biodiversity conservation for example, experience from previous nature conservation initiatives has shown that the projects which have excluded local communities and denied their traditional rights to use natural resources, have not been very successful in the long term (Nelson, 2010).

Problem statement

After gaining independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990, the Namibian government absorbed the lessons of the Zimbabwe’s Communal Area Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) to influence the design of its own wildlife management reforms. The Nature Conservation Ordnance Amendment Act of 1996 introduced the approaches of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) and communal land conservancies (Lapeyre, 2010). Rights are devolved to local communities to manage resources and to benefit from them. It is hoped that local institutions and strategies for sustainable use will emerge and lead both to rural poverty alleviation and to biodiversity preservation.

Significance of the study

While evolved in recent years, there is still limited research that has been done in Namibia to investigate the contribution of tourism to local development. This investigation therefore, is significant, in that it will provide the necessary baseline information on the tourism as a viable component in local development in the study area. There is at present little coherent information on the socio-economic and improved livelihoods of tourism development in the Torra Conservation area. It is, therefore, hoped that this study will contribute toward filling this void. In the past, isolated consultancy studies on economic benefits of tourism were carried out in the area, but such studies in most cases do not follow an academic approach. This study should thus provide the baseline or framework and should identify research gaps upon which other and/or relevant stakeholders can conduct future academic studies.

Study area

Torra Conservancy was gazetted in 1998 and is situated in the southern Kunene region of north-western Namibia (Figure 1.1). It incorporates 3522 km2 of arid and semi-arid landscapes, ranging from undulating ridges bisected by dry riverbeds to rugged mountains. Aside from employment in conservation or ecotourism, most residents are subsistence goat herders (Nott, Davis, and Roman, 2004). Torra Conservancy has a well-developed management plans and has eliminated illegal poaching. It is undoubtedly a ‘flagship conservancy in Namibia’ (Long, 2002; Baker, 2003; NACSO, 2008).

READ TAX OBLIGATION PENDING DISPUTE RESOLUTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1.1 Problem statement
1.1.2 Significance of the study
1.1.3 Study area
1.2 RESEARCH AIM, OBJECTIVES AND QUESTIONS
1.2.1 Research aim
1.2.2 Research objectives
1.2.3 Research questions
1.3 THESIS STRUCTURE
CHAPTER 2 TOWARDS THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK IN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
2.1 RURAL DEVELOPMENT
2.1.2 Sustainable rural tourism development
2.2 INTEGRATED RURAL TOURISM
2.2.1 Tourism policy in sustainable rural development
2.2.2 Place matters
2.2.3 Partnership, participation and collaboration
2.3 TOURISM TRENDS WITHIN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
2.3.1 The diffusionist paradigm
2.3.2 The dependency theory
2.4 COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM
CHAPTER 3 A SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL NAMIBIA
3.1 PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY FOR TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
3.2 AN OVERVIEW OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN NAMIBIA
3.3 THE EVOLUTION OF COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM IN NAMIBIA
3.4 TOURISM DEVELOPMENT THROUGH COMMUNITY-BASED NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (CBNRM)
3.4.1 Community participation in tourism
3.5 IMPACTS OF COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
3.5.1 Economic impact of tourism
3.5.2 Leakages/Linkages
3.5.3 Environmental impacts of tourism
3.5.4 Social impacts of tourism
CHAPTER 4 JUSTIFICATION OF DATA AND METHOD APPLICATION
4.1 JUSTIFICATION OF DATA APPLICATION
4.2 JUSTIFICATION OF METHOD APPLICATION
4.3 SAMPLING DESIGN AND SAMPLE SIZE
4.4 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES
4.4.1 Site selection process
4.4.2 Data characteristics and data collection protocol
4.4.3 Description of instruments
4.4.4 Pilot test process
4.4.5 Primary data sources
4.4.6 Secondary data sources
4.4.7 Data cleaning and verification
4.5 RELIABILITY, CONTEXTUAL AND DATA VALIDITY
4.5.1 Validity
4.5.2 Reliability
4.6 DATA ANALYSIS
4.3.4.1 Univariate techniques
4.3.4.2 Bivariate techniques
4.3.4.3 Multivariate techniques
4.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
CHAPTER 5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
5.1 SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF TORRA CONSERVANCY RESIDENTS
5.2 BUSINESS ACTIVITIES, PRODUCTS AND FORMS OF OWNERSHIP IN THE STUDY AREA
5.2.1 Enterprise year of foundation
5.2.3 Source of capital
5.3 IMPACT OF POLICY FRAMEWORK ON TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL NAMIBIA
5.3.1 Tourism dimensions
5.4 ATTITUDES TOWARDS TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
5.5.3 Single explanatory factors of residents’ attitudes
5.5.4 Important factors for residents attitudes
5.5 TOWARDS FORMULATING AN INTEGRATIVE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
5.5.1 Networking
5.5.2 Scale
5.5.3 Endogeneity
5.5.4 Sustainability
5.5.5 Embeddedness
5.5.6 Complementarities
5.5.7 Empowerment and community involvement
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 MAIN FINDINGS DRAWN FROM THE RESULTS
6.1.1 Summary of the results from the tourism development and planning process
6.1.2 Community involvement in the development and planning process
6.1.3 Tourism linked to community integration
6.2 STUDY CONTRIBUTION
6.3 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATION
6.3.1 Limitations
6.3.2 Delimitation
6.4 RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
6.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS
REFERENCES