Assessing Residents’ Empowerment towards Sustainable Ecotourism: A Comparative Study of Kakum National Park and Bobiri Forest and Butterfly Sanctuary in Ghana

Abstract

Tourism is among the largest industries around the globe that are able to stimulate the economies of many countries. Such an industry need to be sustainable so that nations can continue to enjoy the benefits. One type of tourism that can be sustainable, has the tendency to conserve biodiversity and provide sustainable livelihoods to community members is ecotourism. Ecotourism can perform these roles when residents are empowered. Yet, few studies have considered the empowerment of community members for ecotourism sustainability. This study utilized sequential explanatory mixed method approaches to assess the empowerment issues of destination residents for ecotourism sustainability. The study particularly investigated the extent of residents’ empowerment and the factors affecting residents’ empowerment. The study also looked at the types of empowerment that residents prefer, types of residents’ empowerment that would enhance tourists/visitor’s satisfaction as well as the roles of private and public institutions in empowering residents. The analytical techniques employed include exploratory factor analysis, logistics regression, and content analysis. The results indicate that communities around KNP are more empowered than those around BFRBS. The factors affecting residents’ empowerment at KNP include the length of stay whereas at BFRBS, age, religion, the length of stay and gender of respondents affect their empowerment status. The majority of residents want to be humanly empowered whilst most tourists/visitors believe that human empowerment of residents would enhance their satisfaction. The study recommends that a national ecotourism policy should be enacted and an ecotourism framework with local perspective should be developed. Such policies and framework can guide the practices of ecotourism at destinations towards sustainability.

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Ecotourism, Empowerment, Comparative Study, Kakum National Park

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