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Boston College

Publication Date

Fall 2010

Program Name

Tanzania-Zanzibar: Coastal Ecology and Natural Resource Management

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to attempt to better outfit the Kidike Pemba Flying Fox Ecotourism Center of Pemba Island, Zanzibar, in order to increase its appeal to a wider audience of tourists and to benefit the surrounding community of Mjini Ole. This goal was specifically carried out by establishing and marketing cultural tourism under the Kidike brand. In Kidike’s initial condition, guests were able to see the roost site of this endemic giant fruit bat – the Pemba Flying Fox – and continue on to see historical ruins and a mangrove forest, but the presentation and experience as a whole was very straightforward and somewhat lacking in originality. In order to diversify this initial attraction, cultural activities specific to Pemba were organized and prepared for a tourist audience and appropriately marketed as a means of maintaining a sustainable eco-tourism venture and simultaneously providing an alternative, non-consumptive source of income for the community members. A brief history of each activity was compiled to be read to future guests during each tour, as were suggested tour outlines so as to provide tour consistency and direction. On-site assessments, interviews and surveys of tourists, hoteliers, and village members, and the generation of a Kidike promotional brochure and its distribution to major Pemba hotels were all components of this study. This study is significant as it attempts to offer a means for and provide an example of a non-consumptive livelihood in a precarious environment that faces almost certain degradation in the future as Pemba’s population continues to rise. Its relevance to the study site and similar external locations is manifest in the inherent problems associated with the indisputable advent of growing tourism and growing population, albeit the small size and finite resources of the Island of Pemba.

Disciplines

Place and Environment | Tourism

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