Role Of Public Awareness And Perception On Community Participation In Tourism; Case Of Musanze District; Rwanda (Period: 2020-2025)

Prince NTIHEMUKA, O. Maake Albert

Abstract


This research explores the influence of awareness and perception of the public on participation in tourism with special focus on the Musanze District, Rwanda. Although tourism is very crucial in the development of any economy, community participation in decision making and benefit sharing still poses great challenges due to lack of information. This research tries to determine the levels of awareness and perception of the public in relation to the development of tourism, participation of the community, and the interrelationship between the variables. The methodology applied for this research involves the use of descriptive research designs whereby both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used. A total of 399 households were chosen through Yamane Taro formula and stratified sampling to ensure representation from three different sectors including Nyange, Kinigi, and Shingiro based on their levels of tourism activities and community participation. Further purposive sampling was used to choose key informants including three local leaders and three tour operators (RDB Marketing Officer, Tourism Warden, Tour guide). These results show that there are very high awareness levels (Mean = 4.35, Std = 0.8917) and positive community perceptions (Mean = 4.335, Std = 0.92525) towards tourism development. Community participation levels are relatively high, especially in sense of ownership (Mean = 4.425) and conservation (Mean = 4.31) while there are variations in other areas including job creation (Std = 0.980) and personal attachment (Std = 0.996). There are also high institutional trust levels (Mean = 4.18) and motivation (Mean = 4.23), which show that there are favorable conditions for participation. More importantly, the study shows that there is very strong and statistically significant relationship between public awareness and perception and community participation (r = 0.988, p < 0.01). The conclusion from the results is that public awareness and perception have an impact on community participation in tourism but there are problems of accessibility to information, inclusiveness and equitable distribution of benefits.

Keywords


Public awareness; Community perception; Tourism participation; Conservation & Sustainable tourism.

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.52155/ijpsat.v59.2.8792

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