THE CONTRIBUTION OF EVENTS FOR PRO-POOR TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: IN CASE OF BAHIR DAR CITY, AMHARA ,ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Amhara National Regional State in Ethiopia is endowed and suitable with intangible tourism resources from such resources events are the one, however, its contributions to pro-poor tourism development are not well- known. The purpose of the study was to describe the contributions of events on pro-poor tourism development in Bahir Dar city. A descriptive research design was employed. The researcher used mixed research approaches. The researcher selected 399 sample representatives from the local communities, and distributed the questionnaires for them. A simple random sampling technique was utilized to distribute survey questionnaires for those local household representatives by identifying the proper place. A non-probability purposive sampling technique was followed to select 13 key informants. The data was collected from both primary and secondary sources through a survey questionnaire, and semi-structured interview, and document analysis. The quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive methods of analysis such as mean, frequency, standard deviation, and percentage to explain the three objectives by using the application of SPSS version 20. Qualitative data were also analyzed via content analysis techniques. The study, in conclusion, found that the events have played a greater contribution to the development of pro-poor tourism in Bahir Dar city. However, events contribution onwards the three basic dimensions are not similar as their mean values indicated, economic (4.11), social (4. 01), and environmental (3.46) to the development of pro-poor tourism in Bahir Dar city. From the three dimensions events in environmentally contributed somehow little to the development of pro-poor tourism while economic contributions of events are the highest. The researcher recommended that tourism stakeholders need to come up together to do something special on events in benefiting the poor communities and ensuring pro-poor tourism development , to identify and promote events as tourism products etc…The findings will benefit different tourism stakeholders by providing vital information about events contribution and used as a reference for next researchers.