Community Based Tourism, Livelihood Asset and Poverty: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Based on cross-sectional survey data collected from rural households (n = 446), this study analyzes the impact of community-based tourism (CBT) on sustainable livelihood assets of rural households and poverty. The propensity score matching (PSM) finding revealed that CBT has improved the overall livelihood asset value of participants by 30.4%. The FGT poverty analysis result also showed that multidimensional/asset poverty greatly varies by participation and is found to be high among CBT nonparticipants. Thus, rural poverty reduction through enhancing livelihood assets demands further emphasis by policymakers and tourism development stakeholders at all levels for the sustainability of both household livelihoods and tourism development.

KEYWORDS:

• Asset poverty
• community-based tourism
• livelihood asset
• rural Ethiopia

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to community members involved in this research, tourism administrative workers at all levels, and development agents for their cooperation during data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Woreda is an Ethiopian administrative unit that represents a district.

2. Development agents closely working with rural households.

3. Debo is a mutual support social system constructed by people to help each other by labor sharing in many parts of rural Ethiopia.