Contribution of Rural Tourism Initiatives to the Local Community's Financial Capital Assets

Rural tourism is a significant form of tourism which plays an important role and gives many benefits to rural areas community. In Mara Triangle Rural tourism has been in existence since the establishment of the Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in 1961 although limited studies have been done on its contribution to the local community livelihoods. Hence, this study was conducted in the Mara Triangle to establish community perspectives on the contribution of rural tourism initiatives to the local community’s financial capital assets. Both descriptive and explanatory research designs were used. Questionnaires and focus group discussions were used to collect the primary data. The target population comprised of Mara conservancy staff, the staff of the tented camps i.e. Kichwa Tembo, Mara West and Little Governors and the local people living adjacent to the park up to 3 km away from the reserve boundary. 100 respondents were randomly selected for the survey and 18 respondents were purposively selected for focus group discussions. Three (3) focus group discussions, each comprising of 6 respondents were held while quantitative data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics and multiple regression and qualitative data was analyzed by the use of content analysis. The study findings revealed that rural tourism initiatives have significant positive contribution to financial capital asset (P= 0.0000). The findings further showed that rural tourism initiatives contributes to direct employment of the local community (Mean= 3.80 ), provision of school bursaries (Mean= 3.65 ), provision of training programs (Mean= 3.50 ); community based projects (Mean= 3.45 ) and support for local sport activities (Mean= 3.43 . The study concludes that rural tourism initiatives contribute significantly to financial capital assets of the local community. However, to sustain the contribution of rural tourism initiatives to the local community financial capital assets, there is need to promote community-based projects and enhanced more support on local sport activities