Community perception towards voluntourism as an alternative paradigm for rural revitalization in Nigeria
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Abstract
The emergence of voluntourism as a minuscule segment of global tourism in recent years has been commended as contributing to multiple objectives at alleviating poverty and livelihood vulnerabilities through rejuvenation of local cottage activities and by offering new employment. Government efforts to assuage rural vulnerabilities in Nigeria fall short of creating appropriate strategies commensurable with the need for rural revitalization. One possible way to address this is to encourage voluntourism where its participants are motivated by idealism and strong desire to assist in improving the welfare of impoverished communities. To assess voluntourism efficacy in checkmating rural vulnerabilities, Argungu community in the Northern Region of Nigeria was selected. The attitudinal behaviour of the resident and economic assets plays a pivotal role in study assessment. Research confirmatory models were developed to measure community perception towards voluntourism. Structured and unstructured survey questionnaires were administered coupled with the study site personal observations. Three main themes of tourism resources; voluntourism antecedents and livelihood linkages were incorporated. Hypotheses and research questions were validated via Structural Equation Modelling, thematic analysis and triangulations accordingly. Findings revealed that voluntourism can trigger economic improvement and stimulate rural community in a long term livelihood security and at the same time conserving natural resources. The comparative fit index calculated (CFI) was 0.902 exceeding the recommended minimum value of 0.9, illustrating that the degree of community perception to be positively correlated with the voluntourists potentials to checkmate rural vulnerabilities. Notably, the positive resident behaviour influences influx of voluntourist to Argungu. This indicated that voluntourism paradigm in rural community improves rural economic development and sustenance. The result indicates that the measurement model exhibited a good degree of acceptability and supports the structural model’s validity. The final outcome is a model that synthesizes the validity of voluntourism efficacy as a veritable paradigm for enhancing rural revitalization in Nigeria
Description
Thesis (PhD. (Urban and Regional Planning))
Keywords
Tourism—Social aspects, Tourism—Nigeria, Volunteer tourism