The impacts of event tourism on the host communities : The Northwest region of Cameroon

Tourism is one form of business which brings much economic growth and development to its host communities. It is also known to have many benefits to the host communities and this can be seen in the creation of new jobs, construction of infrastructure and the creation of social amenities in the host region. Concerning the cultural aspect of growth, tourism has made the communities to maintain their culture or else the communities will have nothing to exhibit as their cultural potentials. Tourism has therefore motivated the communities to keep their culture sustainable from generation to generation. Furthermore tourism has come in as a peace maker between the environments, animals and the people. Most environments are being protected and the endangered species of animals are being protected in our communities. This research was carried out with the aim of identifying the impacts of event tourism on the host communities using North-West Region of Cameroon (NWR) as a case study and the objectives to find how the negative impacts could be changed into positive impacts. The method used by the writer was practice based, and a semi-structured interview was conducted. Professionals and non-professionals in the sector of event tourism in northwest region of Cameroon were interviewed and their responses and thoughts were used as the core of the writer´s analysis from which findings were extracted and suggestions were made. The result gotten from this study indicated that although event tourism is good for developing a community, it can also cause havoc (negative impacts to the host community) if both the tourists and the communicants are not well educated about good morals in the host community