Linking agriculture to tourism in Sierra Leone - a preliminary researchMaster's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Tourism - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,2, University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde, language: English, abstract: Tourism has been acknowledged by practitioners and governments to be a tool for economic development, not exclusively but mainly, of less developed countries with few other competitive sectors and, therefore, for boosting their domestic economy as well as reducing the endemic poverty in Africa. This paradigm is difficult to apply when the tourism industry is not viable in a country and the great majority of tourism establishments have insufficient numbers of clients to make profit. In this respect, some findings indicate that, tourism and local small-scale agriculture (World Bank, 2006b) have been widely neglected by the Government of Sierra Leone, all efforts having been directed onto the development of the mining sector. In fact, while production and marketing constraints can be solved as stated in the wider agriculture literature, due to the nature of Sierra Leone as a “fragile state”, findings suggest that the lack of commitment and attitude of the Government to more responsible tourism forms or approaches will hamper any attempt to foster strategic alliances between the poor agriculture sector and tourism industry or other lucrative market-segments. Although the recent tourism development in Sierra Leone addresses the important issue of preserving the few available tourist attractions, an overall (responsible) tourism destination management integrating all stakeholders and planning consequently the steps leading to competitiveness, as in the case of The Gambia, is still lacking. That tourism benefits will automatically “trickle down” and boost other sectors of the economy, mainly agriculture, is a widely spread belief; yet empirical evidence is still lacking. On the contrary, the literature review indicates that tourism might harm the already neglected and weak agriculture of less developed countries through increased food imports to satisfy the new foreign demand. |
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Linking Agriculture to Tourism in Sierra Leone - a Preliminary Research Dirk König Limited preview - 2008 |
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accessed July accessed November 13 Africa amongst Annals of Tourism Ashley and Mitchell attractions backward-linkages Bélisle competitive constraints consumers Corporate Social Responsibility demand destination developing countries DFID donors economic ES-KO export factors Food Security foreign expatriates framework Freetown fresh Gambia identified impacts implementation important improve informal sector infrastructure initiative investments July 12 Lebanese literature lobsters Management Mitchell and Faal National Tourist NGOs November 13 Overseas Development Institute participants peri-urban Policy poor potential poverty reduction private sector pro-poor tourism promotion reduce relevant responsible tourism Retrieved July 12 Retrieved October Rural Sartorius Sartorius and Kirsten Sierra Leone Sierra Leonean small-scale farmers stakeholders strategies sub-sector supermarkets supply chain sustainable tourism targeted Telfer and Wall Torres and Momsen tourism and agriculture tourism development tourism industry Tourism Research tourism sector UNWTO vegetables World Bank World Bank Group World Tourism Organization www.sciencedirect.com