Community-based Tourism: A Factor-Cluster Segmentation Approach

Abstract

Using a case study of the Kimana Wildlife Sanctuary in Kenya, this paper empirically investigates factors critical to successful community-based tourism development. Factor analysis of 17 survey items produced five key factors: inclusion of stakeholders, recognition of individual and mutual benefits, appointment of legitimate convenor, formulation of aims and objectives, and perception that decisions arrived at will be implemented. Hierarchical cluster analysis demonstrates a simultaneous presence of three different segments within the local community, revealing that ‘operatives’ are interested in participation in the project's activities, ‘opinion leaders’ are concerned with the community's benefits from the project while ‘official leaders’ value the success of the project.

Keywords:

• community-based tourism
• Kenya
• Kenya wildlife service
• Kimana wildlife sanctuary

Acknowledgements

This paper is dedicated to my brother Hillary Githaka Kibicho who was murdered as we prepared to go to the field for final data collection. The author would like to thank Messieurs Kantai ole Menti, Isaacs Sanka, John Naiyielenya and Ntalamiya ole Lepasso among others for their great assistance in collecting data, and Bill Bramwell and Bernard Lane, co-editors of this journal, for their encouraging responses during the review process.

Notes

^a What is your level of agreement with the following statements? Scale: 1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = indifferent; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree.

^a Factors for the combined sample (survey items are as in Table 1).

^b In bold are Cronbach's α while the rest are factor loadings. Absolute loadings less than 0.4 have been omitted.

^a Survey items as in Table 1.

^a Survey items as in Table 1.

^a Survey items as in Table 1.

^a Survey items as in Table 1.

¹ Group Ranches were initiated in the mid-1960s by the Kenya's Government and legislated by the Group Representatives Act of 1978 to bring pastoral areas into productivity and assign the rights and responsibilities of landowners to specific groups of Maasai pastoralists (Kibicho, 2005b, 2006). The leadership of the Group Ranches was to fall on an elected Group Ranch Committee. All members of the local community were supposed to register as members of a particular Group Ranch.

² Growth machine theory contends that an interest in growth is the overriding common interest of certain ‘powerful’ forces within a community. The residents making up the growth machine seek to influence the rest of their community members in the belief that growth is to be desired and is economically beneficial to everyone (cf. Molotch, 1976). In some cases, however, there may be an altruistic surplus effect, which leads individuals to recognise the communal good derived from such an undertaking, and therefore, lessens opposition to tourism development, even among those who may not benefit directly.