Developing indigenous tourism in the bomas: critiquing issues from within the Maasai community in Tanzania

ABSTRACT

With safari attractions dominating the African tourism sector, many tourism studies in Africa have focused on wildlife and wilderness resourced-based tourism, with a secondary body of literature exploring cultural aspects of tourism. Recently many countries in the region, including Tanzania, have started to recognize the potential for stand-alone, culture-based tourism to diversify the tourism industry and for rural, economic development purposes. Drawing upon insights from local stakeholders, primarily members of the Maasai community this study identifies the critical challenges for providing indigenous cultural tourism in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Qualitative data for the study were collected through interviews and site visits to eight Maasai bomas (cultural tourism villages or settlements). Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed significant limiting factors affecting the development of indigenous cultural tourism amongst Maasai in Tanzania. The findings indicate that achieving success in indigenous cultural tourism is therefore challenging, and needs to incorporate specific community-based strategies which can facilitate the development of Maasai cultural tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Constraints
• indigenous tourism
• Maasai
• Ngorongoro
• Tanzania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kokel Melubo is a lecturer in tourism studies at the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka, Tanzania. He has a PhD in tourism business from the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research interest lies around the issues of corporate social responsibility, community wellbeing, indigenous tourism, tour guiding and labor relations.

Anna Carr specializes in tourism management in protected areas, cultural landscapes and Indigenous tourism development. She is a researcher and senior lecturer at the Department of Tourism, University of Otago, New Zealand, where she co-directs the Centre for Recreation Research. She recently co-edited Mountaineering Tourism and Political Ecology of Tourism: Communities, Power and the Environment.

Notes

1. An Age group is a corporate group of male who are initiated at one time through circumcision (Morton, 1979). The Irkorianka entered into an age set in 1996 and retired in 2015. Nyangulo are the newly forming age-set.