Residents’ perspectives of a newly developed ecotourism project: an assessment of effectiveness through the lens of an importance–performance analysis

ABSTRACT

Understanding the perceived importance and performance of various components of ecotourism to residents living in the area it is undertaken is crucial to the overall success of an ecotourism development project. This study examines residents’ perceptions of the importance and performance of ecotourism components (i.e. environmental conservation, economic wellbeing, promotion of local arts and culture, local participation, and fair share of resources), including overall ecotourism development, at the Gaurishankar Conservation Area (GCA) – a recently implemented ecotourism development project in Nepal. This study also examines the effect of socio-demographic, economic, and psychological factors on a perceived gap between the importance and the performance of ecotourism components. Findings suggest that the ecotourism development project at the GCA should concentrate on improving the economic wellbeing of residents, and on overall ecotourism development. Findings also suggest that residents’ inclusion in benefit-sharing mechanisms was associated with a reduced perceived gap between the importance and performance of ecotourism components. A comparison among different geographical segments of residents indicated that the perceived gap between importance and performance varies across different locations.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecotourism
• importance–performance analysis
• conservation area
• resident perception
• benefit-sharing
• Nepal

Acknowledgement

Authors would like to thank Abhinandan Khatiwada, Rabin Shrestha, and Dipendra Mehta for their assistance during the field study. The comments from anonymous reviewers helped to improve the manuscript; we appreciate their time and effort.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Birendra KC http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7949-6672

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Trust for Nature Conservation [grant number H 6660].