Local community attitudes and eco-tourism growth in Bududa district:

Abstract

The study aimed at examining the impact of local community attitudes on ecotourism growth, the study was guided by the following objectives such as to examine the impact of local community behavior on ecotourism, to find out the impact of local community perception on ecotourism growth and to assess the impact of cultural diversification on ecotourism growth. The study used across sectional research design and a quantitative approach. Data were collected from 36 respondents as the sample size and 40 as the target population comprising of tour guides, tourism officers, NGOs and the security officers, the data were collected with the aid of closed ended questionnaire and statistical packages were employed for analyzing the data from which frequency tables, descriptive statistics for example (mean and standard deviation), reliability, validity regression and correlation results were obtained. Furthermore, the study revealed that there is positive and significant impact of community attitudes on ecotourism growth. The study recommends that the efforts to improve ecotourism growth depends on the local community attitudes (behavior, perception and cultural diversification). Finally, the study concludes that there is a strong predictive power that the dimensions of local community attitudes contributes towards improving ecotourism growth in mount elgon national park in in Bududa district.