Towards Sustainable Ecotourism through Stakeholder Collaborations in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper aims to assess the stakeholders’ strategies towards sustainable ecotourism, with specific focus on networks and public private partnership strategies. A qualitative method through exploratory research design was applied to gather in-depth information about the existing networks and their roles towards promoting sustainable ecotourism in Tanzania. Thereafter, 23 common strategies in promoting sustainable ecotourism through collaborations were established from literature review, followed by a survey involving tourism stakeholders (n=250) which was conducted in the eastern and northern tourist circuits of Tanzania. The influence of respondent’s attributes on their perception towards sustainability of ecotourism was analyzed on each of the identified 23 collaboration strategies by specifying and estimating binary logistic model to understand the attributes associated with the identified strategies. The study results show that despite of the number of the stakeholder’s networks available, the level of their involvement in the management of ecotourism is still very low. There is also statistical evidence supporting that, the extent of public private partnerships in ecotourism activities is neither renowned nor formalized. To a large extent, this leads to inadequate seriousness and sense of ownership among stakeholders which jeopardizes both the development and promotion of sustainable ecotourism in the country. It is concluded therefore that, there is greater potential of sustaining ecotourism at any destination if all stakeholders will be represented via networks and public private partnerships within and between sectors.