Degree Name

MA in International Education

Abstract

Currently, Tourism and Trade are the leading sectors contributing towards the implementation of the Zanzibar Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUZA).While investors and local governments are eager to expand tourism on Zanzibar, and as resorts continue to pop up in rural villages all over the Island, the rights and lives of village residents are often disregarded and overwhelmingly there is no benefit to the village itself.

In 2007 the Association for Rural Cooperation in Africa and Latin America (ACRA) began a two-year-long Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) project in two rural poor regions on the East coast of Zanzibar. The goal of PPT is to bring a poverty perspective to tourism development and to unlock opportunities for economic gain, livelihood benefits, and/or engagement in decision making – for the poor within tourism development.

This qualitative inquiry uses participatory action research methods to perform a program evaluation of ACRA’s PPT project that assesses the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the program as designed and implemented. This evaluation is carried out via SWOT analysis that takes into account relevant, current research topics in tourism, PPT’s established strategy areas, ACRA’s organizational progress reports, and beneficiary feedback.

Ultimately this evaluation shows that, there were a number of ambitious and successful initiatives and some missed opportunities; there was tremendous community interest and involvement, encouraging Ministry involvement, and non-existent industry involvement; and overall ACRA laid a firm foundation for future efforts. Practically, this evaluation and its subsequent recommendations can be used as guide from which similar initiatives can build.

Disciplines

Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods | Tourism

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