Rural Tourism: A Tool for Promoting Rural Development and Peace; A Study of Anambra State, South-East Nigeria

Tourism, being one of the most intriguing sustainable development themes has become a popular economic development tool in many countries today. Tourism-related activities are widely regarded as key-tools for rural development, especially in developing countries. Villages are today some of the places attracting the attention of tourism planners more than ever before. Those villages with specific natural or socio-cultural appeal have strong potentials for attracting tourists from close or far off areas and this can have significant role in rural development if well planned and integrated. There is an urgent need for economic diversification in most developing countries; Nigeria is one such countries seeking to diversify her economy away from crude oil production. Nigeria has huge tourism potentials, especially given its natural and diversified landscapes but lacks effective and tourism-supporting and enhancing infrastructure, hence this research set out to find out ways through which rural tourism can be developed in order to enhance rural development and its resultant benefits in the long run to the local communities. Structuralism theory and dependency theory were applied for the study and questionnaire was used to collect data for the study and three-hundred and fifty (350) respondents were selected for the study. Analysis was done using frequency counts and simple percentages and presented through tables and charts. The study identified several approaches that would enhance rural development through rural tourism; more importantly the tourism sector should be strengthened in order for the country to benefit from the sectorKeywords: Peace, rural tourism, rural development, tourism plannin