Tourism Revenue Sharing As Akey To Sustainable Tourism Development In Rwanda : A Case Study Of Musanze District

Abstract

This research entitled Tourism revenue sharing as a key to sustainable tourism development in Rwanda, was carried out in Musanze District. The challenge in respect with this research is what impact tourism revenue sharing can cause to tourism development. In other words, if tourism revenue sharing is not fairly distributed among local people, the latter will not feel involved. Therefore the part of local people in sustaining tourism development will lack. Thus, the research study aimed to examine park revenue sharing and its livelihood impacts to residents around the Volcanoes National Park in Musanze district. This study was carried out between May 2012 and May 2013. The research design was basically a cross functional quantitative research; target population was 375frominhabitantsneighboring Volcanoes National Park, hotel managers and people involved in transport business in Musanze district. The sample size was116 obtained by using the proportion of 30% through the use of stratified and random sampling techniques. The study evaluated the following statements in order to see the implication of community in projects dedicated to them as key success of projects’ implementation and for the tourism development in general. The study findings are highly valuable to government and nongovernmental organizations which are involved in the implementation of conservation policies. The study findings are also significant to further researchers. To reach the findings, semi-structured questionnaire and interview guide were administered respectively to selected people from the neighboring sectors of Volcanoes National Park, hotel managers, and people engaged in transportation business in Musanze district. For data analysis, the researcher used descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze quantitative data; content analysis was applied to quantitative data. SPSS is the software which was used to generate statistical data. The study revealed that tourism revenue sharing is a key to sustainable tourism development project management as it was ascertained by all the study respondents. The respondents agreed that infrastructure was increased because of tourism revenues shared into local areas around Volcanoes National Park (VNP). 26.7% replied that schools have been constructed, 15.8% confirmed the role of tourism revenue in construction of roads. Tourism revenue also enabled local community to conduct income generating activities through associations. 74.3% of the respondents said that VNP has become a favorable environment for employment opportunities. Business people recognized the utmost importance in their affairs as it was agreed by 100% of the study interviewees. Therefore, the findings revealed that local people residing around VNP contribute to the sustainable tourism development as they feel involved; thus they oppose activities that are harmful to VNP and educate one another the importance of striving for sustainable tourism development. The Government of Rwanda and entities in charge of tourism industry were recommended to hold up and reinforce clear policy and institutional support for sustainable tourism development. Besides, local community residing around VNP is recommended to strengthen mechanisms of preserving and conserving tourism environment as they enormously benefit from tourism revenue in the line of alleviating poverty.