Developing responsible tourism in emerging economies: the case of Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Advocacy for the responsible development of tourism continues to attract attention from scholars. The emergence of responsible tourism in the 1990s was a call to action, and for a move from setting agendas (sustainable tourism) to stakeholder accountability. As tourism is still developing in Nigeria, this paper discusses strategies for supporting responsible tourism development in the Southeastern region of the country. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were organized with 166 stakeholders, including staff of tourism parastatals, traditional rulers, the representatives of men, women and youth and local security agencies. Findings identified possible strategies for determining if, when and how responsible tourism development might occur. These strategies include stakeholder empowerment, funding for tourism supporting facilities, boosting security and capacity for implementing tourism policies. The findings suggest that if well implemented, the tourism strategies are central to achieving future resident and tourist friendly development.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsible and sustainable tourism
• planning and development
• Southeastern Nigeria
• emerging economies
• stakeholder collaboration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Murdoch International Postgraduate Scholarship (MIPS) supported the fieldwork for this research, attracted by the first author of this paper for a four-year higher degree by research programme.: [Grant Number MIPS 2017].

Notes on contributors

Afamefuna Eyisi

Afamefuna Eyisi is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Tourism at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State. He recently completed his PhD research in the Tourism and Events Program Unit, College of Arts, Business, Law and Social Sciences (ABLSS) at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. His areas of interest include responsible and sustainable tourism development, tourism planning and development in Africa and residents’ attitudes toward the impacts of tourism development.

Diane Lee

Diane Lee is the Academic Chair and a Senior Lecturer in the Tourism and Events Program Unit in the College of ABLSS at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. Her research focus relates to the concept of sustainable tourism development, incorporating the environment in all its aspects. This covers the areas of host community attitudes, cultural tourism, nature-based tourism and resource economics.

Kathryn Trees

Kathryn Trees is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies in the College of ABLSS at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. She has an interdisciplinary background across literature, Indigenous studies, law and social justice, and education. She teaches and supervises at undergraduate and postgraduate level across these disciplines. She is mainly concerned with building relationships between academic and community lives.