Community Capacity Building for Tourism Development in the Local Communities of Shiraz, Iran
The main purpose of the study is to assess building community capacity for tourism development. A lack of community capacity has been identified as a barrier to tourism development in third world countries. Hence, the study provides a focused academic analysis of this issue within tourism develop...
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Main Author: | |
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Format: | Thesis |
Language: | English English |
Published: |
2009
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Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5676/1/FEM_2009_5.pdf http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5676/ |
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Summary: | The main purpose of the study is to assess building community capacity for tourism
development. A lack of community capacity has been identified as a barrier to tourism
development in third world countries. Hence, the study provides a focused academic
analysis of this issue within tourism development in Shiraz. The data for this study was
collected from community leaders and local residents. Eight operational dimensions in
three levels of (individual, organizational and community) were used to measure the
level of community capacity building for tourism development. Information for this
study was derived from questionnaires and focus group discussions. Descriptive
statistics, correlations, t-test, one-way Anova, and multiple regression analysis were also
performed on the complete data set. Descriptive Statistics were used to determine the
level of community capacity building as well as its barriers for tourism development.
The findings show that, generally, community capacity building in the study area is low.
However, the community capacity building in the old district is higher than the new district of Shiraz. The findings also show sense of community and individual level are
the highest in comparison with other dimensions and levels. These finding also have
been supported by focus group discussion. T-test results also confirmed higher level of
community capacity building for the old district. One-way anova result also showed that
the level of community capacity building in cultural activities is higher than other types
of tourism activities. The study also has identified that lack of community capacity
building is an important barrier for tourism development, especially in the new district.
In support of this finding, the focus group has also confirmed the barriers of community
capacity building. This study also investigated community perceptions towards tourism
impacts and its relationship with level of community capacity building. The study
proved that there are broadly similar views among the leaders and local residents’
perceptions toward tourism impacts on local communities. The correlation result showed
that there is a significant relation between economic impacts and the level of community
capacity building for tourism development. The correlations result also confirmed that
there were significant relationships between the level of community capacity building
and the leaders’ age, length of residence, length of position, income, tourism income,
tourism job and family engaged in tourism activities. Lastly, multiple regression analysis
indicated that approximately 74 percent (R² =.737) of the variance in community
capacity building was predicted by the leaders’ income, tourism income, extra activities,
length of residence, educational level, and family engaged in tourism industry.
According to the result, the largest beta coefficient is the leaders’ income. It is expected
that the findings of this study could be utilized by the community leaders and tourism
developers for future follow-up studies and reassessment of community capacity
building for tourism development in their communities. |
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