Assessing social impact in the field of sustainable tourism development: Evidence from Cabo Delgado (MZ)

ABSTRACT

Assessing the social impact of tourism-related activities is of paramount importance to promoting sustainable development. The present study aimed to assess the social impact of a project in Cabo Delgado (MZ), designed to increase local community residents’ employability in the emerging tourism sector through the delivery of vocational training programmes, utilising a multi-phase and mixed-method design. The study comprised three different phases (before, during, and after the intervention) and took into account the perspective of a variety of stakeholders. Programmes were perceived to be effective by local operators in the tourism sector and trainees, as they enhanced their living conditions and increased their employability. International operators and tourists, however, had not yet perceived their effectiveness. This study offers a methodological framework for social impact assessment by performing a programme evaluation as an integral part of the intervention itself. This methodology can be extended to other non-tourism related contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Social impact
• sustainable tourism
• Mozambique
• mixed-method
• vocational training

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to extend their gratitude to local operators from Istituto Oikos who helped us to recruit participants for this study and assisted us in the field. This work was supported by the European Commission under the project title ‘Profissão turismo - Vocational training and educational programs to increase employability in the hotel and tourism sector in Cabo Delgado Province’ (Reference: EuropeAid/131572/L/ACT/MZ).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 According to Social Exchange Theory (SET), which is commonly used in understanding residents’ perception of tourism impacts (Nunkoo et al., 2013), the residents offer their support to tourism industry if they perceive positive tourism impacts to outweigh negative impacts.

2 The University course in Tourism Management was one-year long.

3 Four to five months after the end of the programs.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission under the project title ‘Profissão turismo - Vocational training and educational programs to increase employability in the hotel and tourism sector in Cabo Delgado Province’; Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation - EuropeAid (Reference: EuropeAid/131572/L/ACT/MZ).