Tourism governance as a driver of sustainable development: Insight from Harar city, Ethiopia

Abstract

Tourism governance involves policies, laws, regulations, and institutional frameworks that help guide the development of tourism. This study aims to assess administrative and institutional features of tourism governance as drivers of sustainable development with particular reference to the city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia. The research employed a descriptive and explanatory design using mixed approaches of probability and non-probability techniques in the process of data collections from various target populations such as experts in the local government offices, culture and tourism bureaus, tour operators, tour and travel guides, museum guides, hotel owners and staffs, and community representatives. Data was collected from 120 respondents through questionnaires and some key informants through interviews. The quantitative ones were analyzed using SPSS version 20 for frequency, percentage, and mean proportions. The study ascertains that tourism governance has a profound impact on the practice and development of tourism industry. Tourism governance mainly of policy frameworks, stakeholder engagements, institutional capacity, and governance structure significantly influences tourism development and subsequently shows an impact on the economic growth of the city. Limited effort in promotional activities, inadequate budget allocation, limited stakeholder involvement, political instability, and weak institutional structure have been identified as the main problems related to the tourism governance of the study area. As a remark, the authors finally recommend that the government improve tourism regulations, review policies, encourage stakeholder engagements, and allocate sufficient budget for the tourism industry to maximize the opportunities potentially could be gained from it.