Community-based Tourism in Rwanda
Njenji, Julius (2020)
Njenji, Julius
2020
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020060817647
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020060817647
Tiivistelmä
The aim of this thesis is to showcase Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, Rwanda´s Community-base tourism (CBT) venture to the Finnish tourists. In fact, it is a good thing for tourism to be beneficial to all the stakeholders of the industry to guarantee sustainability. This research began with the defunct Duara travels commissioning the researcher to research and creates a home stay community-based service location for the company in Rwanda. But this initiative failed because of the closing down of the company, prompting the restructuring of the project.
The research problem therefore is the low demand for Rwanda´s Community-based tourism products by the Finnish tourists. The project examines in detail the concepts of Responsibility and Community-based tourism. Both concepts portray the need for tourism to be beneficial to all the stakeholders of the industry. As such, they are perceived to hold the future of the tourism business as many are becoming worried about the environmental consequences of conventional tourism and are looking for new ways of traveling.
The work further examines Rwanda as a Community-based tourism destination, focusing on the case of Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge. The lodge provides direct and indirect income sources to the local inhabitant population. It employs some local community members directly while others provide paid services to the visitors like tour guiding and dance performances. However some challenges regarding the venture were also uncovered in this work.
Rwanda is today emerging and a favourable tourism destination because it is largely peaceful and has great infrastructures. The research methodology is qualitative and exploratory case study the research approach. The data collection method is semi-structure interview. Five Finnish travelers and a tour operator´s manager were interviewed. The results shows that, many Finnish travellers are embracing Community-based tourism initiatives. Conclusively CBT and responsibility in tourism are seen as the future of the tourism industry but the emergence of the corona virus pandemic may bring some drawbacks to the growing trend.
The research problem therefore is the low demand for Rwanda´s Community-based tourism products by the Finnish tourists. The project examines in detail the concepts of Responsibility and Community-based tourism. Both concepts portray the need for tourism to be beneficial to all the stakeholders of the industry. As such, they are perceived to hold the future of the tourism business as many are becoming worried about the environmental consequences of conventional tourism and are looking for new ways of traveling.
The work further examines Rwanda as a Community-based tourism destination, focusing on the case of Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge. The lodge provides direct and indirect income sources to the local inhabitant population. It employs some local community members directly while others provide paid services to the visitors like tour guiding and dance performances. However some challenges regarding the venture were also uncovered in this work.
Rwanda is today emerging and a favourable tourism destination because it is largely peaceful and has great infrastructures. The research methodology is qualitative and exploratory case study the research approach. The data collection method is semi-structure interview. Five Finnish travelers and a tour operator´s manager were interviewed. The results shows that, many Finnish travellers are embracing Community-based tourism initiatives. Conclusively CBT and responsibility in tourism are seen as the future of the tourism industry but the emergence of the corona virus pandemic may bring some drawbacks to the growing trend.