Abstract:
Visitor management (VM) is a type of managerial techniques and tools used to preserving the
natural and cultural tourism assets, retain visitor experiences as well as promoting sustainable
tourism. Visitor management tools can also categorized as hard and soft visitor management
technique. The aim of this study was to investigate visitor management to enhance sustainable
tourism development in Entoto Natural Park, Addis Ababa. The study was used descriptive
design in link with mixed research approach. The sampling techniques were include non probability sampling specifically convenience sampling to get representative sample from
visitors and purposive sampling to select samples from Entoto Natural Park staffs, Addis Ababa
tourism office, Addis Ababa Culture and Tourism Development Bureau, travel agents and
private business owners who were located in the park and provide different service for visitors.
Questionnaires, interviews and observations were used as a data collection instruments. Hence,
368 domestic visitors were taken for survey questionnaires. The data collect through survey
questionnaire was analyzed by using SPSS software version 25and, descriptive statistics
specifically percentage and mean was used to analyzed data collected from survey
questionnaires moreover, Pearson correlation was also conducted to see the relationship
between variables and although content analysis method used to analyze the qualitative data.
The findings of this research revealed that the practices of visitor management tools in Entoto
Natural Park were poor condition which confirmed the challenges of implementing visitor
management including low level of implementation, limited stakeholder participation, limited
skilled human power, lack of awareness and lack of responsibility in the park. On the other
hand, the Pearson correlation verified that hard visitor management tool has positive & strong
relationship with sustainable tourism development and soft visitor management tool has positive
and moderate correlation with sustainable tourism development.
