Contribution of tourism to the reduction of youth income poverty: a case of Moshi District, Tanzania

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Date

2013

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Sokoine University of Agriculture

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing the contribution of the tourism sector in reducing youth income poverty in Moshi District. The study was guided by three research questions focusing on perceptions of youth on being employed in the tourism sector, effectiveness of the tourism sector in reducing youth income poverty and challenges facing youth from accessing tourism income. The study was conducted in Marangu area in Moshi District Kilimanjaro Tanzania. A cross sectional research design was adopted to collect information on how the tourism sector contributes to the reduction of youth income poverty. Data were collected from 120 respondents who were hoteliers, tour guides, tour operators, porters, sculptors and sellers in the tourism sector. The respondents were obtained through purposive and simple randomly sampling techniques. Primary data were collected using a questionnaire, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software was used to analyse the collected data in which descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were computed. Findings from the study show that the tourism sector contributed to poverty alleviation among the youth employed in the sector. Paired-samples t-test analysis revealed a significant (P< 0.001) difference average level of 5% between income gained by the youth before and after joining the tourism sector. Although the tourism sector is contributing to youth’s income poverty reduction there are still some challenges facing the youth who work in the sector. The study recommends that more efforts should be done for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to make sure that the sector is contributing more.

Description

The Degree of Master of Arts in Rural Development

Keywords

Tourism, Youth income poverty, Poverty reduction-youth, Moshi District, Tanzania

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