Community Empowerment as a Tool for Sustainable Tourism Development: The Case of Hawassa City and Its Vicinities

Abstract

The main purpose of the current study is to investigate the major contribution of community empowerment to the achievement of sustainable tourism development in Hawassa city and its vicinities. The study employed descriptive and explanatory research design and used both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The target populations for the study were households, tourism officials and tourism service providers. Both purposive and systematic random sampling techniques were employed for interview and household survey questionnaire data gathering instruments respectively. The data gathered by qualitative approach analyzed, discussed and interpreted by narrative analysis, whereas the quantitative data analyzed by descriptive statistics(frequency, mean, percentage) and inferential statics(correlation ,regression) with the help of version 21 statistical packages for social science (SPSS) software. The finding of the study also identified that the status of community empowerment in the study area is very low. Moreover, the study revealed that community empowerment in sustainable tourism development helps to bring different economic, socio-cultural and environmental contribution. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended that the city culture, tourism and sport department should focus on awareness creation; training and capacity building program to improve and enhance community empowerment in sustainable tourism development in the study area.

Keywords:Community, Community Development, Community Empowerment, Sustainable Tourism Development, Hawassa

DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/63-02

Publication date: January 31^st 2023