Assessment of Rural Tourism Initiatives as Strategy for Poverty Reduction in Tanzania: A Case of Bagamoyo and Kisarawe Districts.

Mungure, Jossam Samwel (2024) Assessment of Rural Tourism Initiatives as Strategy for Poverty Reduction in Tanzania: A Case of Bagamoyo and Kisarawe Districts. Doctoral thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

This study assessed the effect of rural tourism initiatives as strategy for poverty reduction in Tanzania. Based on previous studies, four tourism initiatives deemed vital for the implementation of the sustainable rural tourism (RT) were identified. The study was conducted in two district councils namely: Bagamoyo and Kisarawe in Coastal region whereby structured questionnaire, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and field survey was used as an instruments to collect information from the sample of 400 respondents. The simple randomly sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used. Purposive sampling techniques applied to select key respondents. A likert scale range from 1 to 7 was used to measure the level of ranking and acceptance of variables. Three theories Poverty reduction theory, Social exchange theory, and Econometric time series theory were applied to establish the link between rural tourism and poverty reduction. Linear Regressions were used for data analysis. The findings revealed that four hypotheses were accepted and two were rejected. Therefore, local community’s skills and knowledge had greater positive significant effects on the poverty reduction in a micro economic level, tourism development programmes are crucial tools for RT on poverty reduction, government policies and regulations controls and manage the local community’s perceptions and their attitudes in general in conduction reliability, effectiveness, and efficiency of rural tourism activities. The study established that, respondents in Bagamoyo and Kisarawe perceived rural tourism development as an activity that has a multiplier effect. The findings of the study lead to the conclusion that implementing rural tourism initiatives as strategy is a new market opportunity to bring about sustainability of poverty reduction, which is realized through the gain in the economic, social, and political dimensions and improvement of brand image of Bagamoyo and Kisarawe district councils. This contributes to body of knowledge by coming with guiding framework on how the RT could reduce poverty. The study used a cross sectional approach that might offer a limited perspective on local community's’ perceptions on rural tourism that change over time, thus future studies should try to use a longitudinal approach. Keywords: Rural tourism, poverty reduction, perception, development, Tanzania

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