BARRIERS TO COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN TOURISM BUSINESSES: A CASE STUDY OF LOCAL COMMUNITY INARUGAM-BAY 1 R.A.C.USHANTHA, 2 C.N.R. WIJESUNDARA 1 Department of Marketing Management, Faculty of Management Studies, Sabaragamauwa University of Sri Lanka 2 Department of Tourism Management, Faculty of Management Studies, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka E-mail: 1 chanakaccc@gmail.com, 2 namalsusl@yahoo.com Abstract Sri Lanka tourism has been growing with significance annual growth rate for past five years period starting from 2010 and it has ensured that tourism will be the most impressive industry in future Sri Lankan economy. The government also has given priority tourism through their economic agenda. The government has initiated several tourism projects by targeting the prosperity of local community, but most of these projects haven t reached the said objective due to some exiting barriers from community perspective. This study has been conducted to identify these existing barriers in rural community in Arugambay destination. It was revealed that there are operational, structural and cultural barriers to community participation in the tourism businesses in many developing countries although they do not equally exist in every tourist destination. Further, while these limits tend to exhibit higher intensity and greater persistence in the developing world than in the developed world, they appear to be a reflection of prevailing socio-political, economic and cultural structure in many developing countries.the study used mix method to explore the existing limitations of local community to take part in tourism businesses. Data was collected from the local community of Arugam-Bay and conducted personal interviews and distributed questionnaires to gather required information. Results of this study depict that barriers to community participation exists at the destination and the most significance barriers were cultural barriers while some of the operational barriers also existing. Keywords Barriers, Community Participation, Tourism Businesses. I. INTRODUCTION Tourism considers as the world s largest employer and also considers as major sources of substantial foreign exchange earner to any country (Blank, 1991 & Richards, 2003). According to Beeton (2006), tourism is one of the major means that helps to development of local community. Honeck (2008) revealed that tourism industry has proved continued and strong growth in most of developing countries which are characterized with high level of widespread poverty. It is vital to mention that involvement of local community is crucial for sustainable development of the tourism industry not only because tourism has been maintaining a close bond with the local communities as hosts, but also due to the destinations of tourists are communities and it is in the community that tourism happens (Blank, 1989). Beeton (2006) point out that tourism now concerns as major agent of transformation in every tourists destination it has touched. One approach to improve community development via tourism is to active involvement of local communities and make sure that their role is tapped and sustained through genuine participation in the industry (Beeton, 2006). Active involvement and participation of local communities in tourism industry has been considered as a positive force for transform and passport to development. It is vital to mention that involvement of local community is crucial for sustainable development of the tourism industry not only because tourism has been maintaining a close bond with the local communities as hosts, but also due to the destinations of tourists are communities and it is in the community that tourism happens (Blank, 1989). Even though it is easy to promote local participation and involvement for tourism, it is far more complex to practice in any context. According to ICRA (2012) Sri Lanka shows a significant progress in tourism with the return of peace to the country in May 2009, declaration of convincing victory over terrorists. Sri Lanka s tourism was badly affected by the ethnic conflict since 1980s. With the restoration of harmony in the island and the promise of world economic growth, the condition is well suit for several years of healthy growth in country s tourism arrivals and tourist revenue. ICRA (2012) revealed, tourism considers as one of the major foreign exchange source for the country s economy. Tourism has been ranked as the sixth largest foreign exchange earner in 2009, but could able to climb up to fourth position by 2010 (SLTDA, 2012). According to the (SLTDA, 2012) statistics, tourism earned LKR37.51 billion from tourism in 2009 and increased it by 49.9% in 2010. The government s report titled Tourism development strategy 2011-2016 shows that they hope to increase foreign exchange earning up to US$ 2.75 billion by 2016. Another positive aspect of tourism development is its contribution towards the employment creation to the nation. It generates employment opportunities both directly & indirectly. Participation is a process of influence and share control over development commencement and the decisions by different stakeholders such as local communities who are the beneficiaries of community 86
tourism (Havel, 1996). Wolfensohn (1996) explained that participation normally search for collaboration or corporation and the dedication required to ensure the sustainability of tourism developments. As Haval (1996) mentioned, local communities are rarely engaged with tourism developments and normally they are voiceless in development process. This passive participation of local communities for tourism development initiations is contrary to the principles of sustainable tourism developments (Mbaiwa, 2005). Further, as noted earlier there are limited number of research studies carried out concerning this matter, which make it all the more relevant. So, this lack of related studies motives the researcher to conduct this study to reveal existing barriers to get maximum community participation and involvement for the tourism businesses. Finally, the case study approach will employ to succeed this objective. II. LITERETURE REVIEW Tourism concerns as one of the fastest growing industries and it has been performing and growing with a great pace (Dogra and Gupta, 2012). Tourism has also gained the top priority of the economic agenda of many developing counties like Sri Lanka. It also believed that tourism can be utilized as tool to find solution for many burning issues in developing countries. As per Dogra and Gupta (2012) revealed, Community participation is major component for the fruitful tourism development of a certain destination. In many countries, tourism has been controlled and developed by giant tour operators and multinational tour organizations, and they don t much regards about economic condition and socio-cultural conditions (Timothy and Loannidas, 2002). According to them this has happened due to most of developing countries are lacking wealth and political strength, which make them prone to taking decisions that is beyond their control. Timothy and Loannidas (2002 ) further explained that due to above reason tourism development in many developing countries shaped by local entrepreneurs have not much responsibility to survive in the long term. Due to that, local community will be the victimized party who will lose their destination goodwill as well as employment created through the industry. Tosun (2000) pointed out that it is very much important to get the participation and involvement of local community in tourism development process, even though many developing nations failed to accomplish it. According to Tosun (2000) local people s participation and involvement in tourism development in development countries are limits due to many reasons. He explained this relating to community involvement for tourism decision-making process in developing countries has been limited due to three major limitations namely (i) Operational limitations, (ii) Structural limitations, and (iii) Cultural limitations. Operational barriers can be splited into three segments,they are (a) centralization of public administration of tourism, (b) lack of information and (c) lack of coordination (Tosun, 2000). Next he revealed that structural limitations may consist with (a) Attitude of professionals, (b) elite domination, (c) lack of expertise, (d) lack of trained human resource, (e) lack of relevant legal system, (f) High cost of community participation and finally (g) lack of financial resources. Third limitation, cultural limitation may includes (a) limited capabilities and capacity of local people and (b) lack of awareness within the local communities (Tosun, 2000). Further Dogra and Gupta (2012) explained that, these existing limitations may be an extension of the existing economic, social and political structure in most of developing countries, which have limited them from gaining a higher level of development. On the other hand, it has generally accepted that local people s participation as citizen power is not a simple issue but it engaged with different ideological beliefs, administrative arrangements, political forces and redistribution of power and wealth in third world countries (Dogra and Gupta, 2012). Tosun (2004) revealed that most of third world countries are suffering from number of structural deficiencies, when they are implementing tourism in community area. These structural barriers can be grouped under three major headings such as (a) Cultural features, (b) Socio-economic features and (c) Political features. Cultural features consist with apathy among the poor people, lack of proper education and poor living condition in highly stratified societies. Secondly, Socio-economic features consist with low level of living, lack of services of welfare state, low per capita national income, high rate of population growth, low economic growth, increasing income inequality, in adequate human resources and increasing unemployment. Thirdly, Political features consist with high level of centralization of public administration, high level of favoritism, elite domination in political life, high level of clashes among follower of different ideologies (Tosun, 2004). III. MATERIELS AND METHODS To gain a clear understanding of the central theme and the research questions, the study employed a case study approach. This approach was selected due to its ability to explore and create a holistic, in-depth investigation and thorough knowledge about a certain community (Saunders et al, 2000). Further, the case study approach enables to gather in-depth information about a certain community and gain a solid understanding about that specific community within the research context. Required data were collected from the local community in Arugambay by using the selfadministered questionnaire and interviewing relevant stakeholders. The questionnaire was consisted with 87
nine statements and respondents were asked to select their agreement with those statements. Further respondents were advised to mark the statements on five point likert-scale, starting from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The researcher conducted a pilot survey on a sample of 10 respondents at Arugam-bay village. It was conducted to verify the validity of the set questionnaire &its content to check whether respondents can understand the questions included to the questionnaire. Only minor adjustments were done for the questionnaire after the pilot survey. Required data gathered by the researcher by physically attending to the selected region Arugambay. By staying within the community, observations of the host community and their involvement and participation in tourism activities and existing barriers were also closely observed. However, the researcher did not consider the observation as an official method for data gathering, but minor references to observations were incorporated. Even though this study has its roots to the wide range of previous scholars works as it appeared under the literature review, it will be more thorough and complex study, and it further tried to carry together and inspect empirically Barriers of community participation for tourism businesses in tourism development process. Due to the complexity of the study, it was designed to utilize a combination of questionnaire and interview for data gathering in order to address the major research questions successfully. IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Quantitative Aspect Table 01: Mean ranking of barriers in community participation When analyze the above table, it depicts that majority of respondents have agreed with the statement of Apathy & low level of awareness in the local community & it could gain the first rank (mean 4.79, SD 0.487) while Limited capacity of local people gain the second position (mean 4.33, SD 0.879). Both these statements represent the cultural limitation as per Tosun (2000). Centralization of public administration has gained the third rank (mean 3.92, SD 1.004) while Lack of information gained the fourth position under mean ranking (mean 3.66, SD 0.879). Further, these two statements represent the operational barriers as per the Tosun s (2000) categorization. Those four values are above 3.50, therefore it confirmed that majority has agreed with these four statements. It further justified that community people have been suffering from said barriers when they participate in tourism related businesses in their region. All other barriers have gained the mean value below 3.50 and it justified that those barriers were not significance barriers among the local community. Qualitative Aspect When analyzing the information gathered through interviews, it seems that majority of respondents highlighted that lack of interest of local people limit their participation for tourism development process. Most of these respondents raised that lack of interest and low level of awareness in the local community has limited the community participation for tourism development activities. Even though the government has intension to get local people s ideas and views for tourism development activities, it was very difficult them to get their ideas and thoughts due to poor attendance for such sessions. It has proved by one interviewee as below; You can realize this matter, if you attend to the community general meeting. Some times community leaders are calling general meetings to talk about some important and burning matters, but only few members regularly be present for such meetings., So its prove that they don t want to know what is going on (Pers.comm.NGO 01). It further seems that most of respondents highlighted some cultural limitations have affected to limit the local people s participation for tourism development process. Here, most of respondents raised the issue of limited capacity of local people to take part in tourism development process. Arugam-bay is a very remote destination which is locates south-east part in Sri Lanka. The local community who are living in Arugam-bay is not much educated. It has proved through the demographic information of the questionnaire as well. According to the demographic information, majority (64.2%) of local respondents have gained the education just upto the GCE Ordinary level. Out 88
of these 64.2%, 15.4% of community people have educated upto grade 05. Only 3.1% of respondents have completed their degrees and above. It further proved the inability and lack of capacity of local peoples to participate in tourism development process in Arugam-bay. As per the interviewee; Majority of our people have schooled upto GCE O/L. Even the people who successfully completed their O/L exam are very limited. Personally I believe local community possesses very limited knowledge on tourism. Under that concern getting their participation in tourism development is not practically viable (Pers.comm.Entrepreneur 02). Most of interviewees continuously mentioned that local community in Arugam-Bay are not qualified enough to contribute for the decision making process. They raised these thoughts due to lack of education level of community people. It further confirmed by the interviewees as follows; You know? Majority of this community are engaging with fishing and farming. That is their main source of income. Personally I believe that these people don t possess enough knowledge to offer viable contribution to the tourism development process. (Pers.comm.NGO 01). people have enough exposure to contribute in decision making level. (Pers.comm.NGO 01). Developing countries like Sri Lanka, tourism data and information are insufficient. On the other hand collected data and information also not disseminating to the local people in proper way. Simply, the relevant authoritiesdon t have well established mechanism to disseminate available information to the tourism stake holders. Therefore, most of local people are not aware regarding tourism development in their region. Therefore, low community participation can be seen in tourism development in remote destinations. There is a huge communication gap between decision makers and local communities. This lack of communication and information does not only increase the knowledge gap between decision makers and local communities but also speed up isolation of the local communities from the tourism development process (Pers.comm.NGO 01). Accordingly, the mentioned knowledge gap between relevant authority and local people make it difficult for local people to take part in the tourism development process. Other aspect of limited capacity of local people is lack of knowledge on tourism concepts and operations. As mentioned previously, the origin of Arugam-bay based on fishing and farming. Therefore, local people are very keen on fishing and farming but they are bit unaware about tourism concepts and operations. Specially they don t have much idea about new trends in tourism industry. It proved by interviewee as below; I think 99% of local people are not in position to contribute to the tourism development in any mean. Local people s knowledge on tourism is very limited. So, how can we get their contribution? (Pers.comm.Government 01). Tourism development is a process which should adhere to the set of rules and regulations, policies, guidelines and many best practices. When develop tourism in anywhere, there must be a well-qualified & professional team to initiate the development activities. Here, we should concern the national level to regional level policies and should stick to the proper planning. Local communities like Arugam-bay don t possess these skills, therefore community participation for tourism development is not rationale due to poor knowledge of local people on tourism subject. As per the interviewee; Tourism is a kind of magic for the local people. They don t know exactly the process of tourism. They are engaging with the industry to receive benefits attached with it. Most of local people are performing lower profile duties in all tourism establishments. So, I don t believe that these Further, decision makers may not possess up-dated data and information about economic, socio-cultural structures of local communities in Arugam-bay due to the fact that collecting such data and information requires constant research works that is not possible in the absence of financial resources and know-how. Therefore, to having better tourism development via local people s participation, data and information about the structure of local community in Arugambay and updated data regarding local, national and international tourism should be gathered in a comprehensive way and distributed to the host communities. CONCLUSION This study has recognized and further discussed the existing barriers to community participation towards tourism development in Arugam Bay tourist destination of Sri Lanka. The research has identified that the barriers revealed by Tosun (2000), exist even in Arugam Bay community and these barriers are namely Limited capacity of poor people, low level awareness in the local community, lack of information, lack of government support, and lack of trained human resources exists there in Arugam Bay. The study findings have finally established that cultural limitations and operational limitations were highly affected to limits the local people participation for tourism development in Arugam Bay. Further, it has revealed that structural limitations haven t done much impact to limits local people s participation. Even though most of developing countries are 89
suffering from number of structural deficiencies, when they are implementing tourism in community area, it was bit contradictory with the findings of this study due to few structural limitations had affected to limits the locals participation in Arugam Bay region. REFERENCES [1] Beeton, S. (2006).Community development through tourism, Landlink Press, Australia. [2] Blank, S. (1989). The psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. san Francisco: CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. [3] Blank, U. (1991). The community tourism industry imperative: The necessity, the opportunities, its potential. Venture Publishing: State College. [4] Havel, V. (1996). Reflections-what is participation. The World Bank. [5] Honeck, D. (2008).LDC poverty alleviation and the Doha development agenda: is in Tourism Journal of Sustainable Tourism. [6] Mbaiwa, J. (2005). The problems and prospects of sustainable tourism development in the Okago Delta, Botswana, Journal of Sustainable Tourism. [7] Nicolau M. (2008). Progress in tourism management: Community Benefit Tourism Initiatives: A conceptual oxymoron? Tourism Management. [8] Richards, G. (2003). Tourism and labour mobility in the European Union, Tourism Recreational Research. [9] Saunders, M., P. Lewis, and A. Thornhill (2000).Research methods for business students. Tourism and Protected Areas: Benefits beyondboundaries. Wallingford: CABI International. [10] SLTDA. (2012). Annual Statistical Report-2012: Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Sri Lanka. [11] Timothy, D.J. and Ioannides. (2002) Tour operator hegemony: dependency and oligopoly in insular destination. In Sharpley.R. and Tefler. D. J. (Ed). Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues: Channel View Publications. [12] Tosun, C. (2000). Limits to community participation in the tourism development process in developing countries, Tourism Management. [13] Tosun, C. (2004). Expected nature of community participation in tourism development, Tourism Management. [14] UNCTAD (2007). FDI in tourism: the development dimension, UNCTAD current studies. [15] Wolfensohn, J. D. (1996). Foreword. In Havel, V. (1996) The World Bank Participation Sourcebook. 90