Co-designing for Sustainable Community-based Tourism Enterprises in Homa Bay County, Kenya

Abstract

The advocacy for community participation in local development has been in existence for a while now, with its roots in the concept of sustainability and sustainable development. This emphasis on community participation for local development is fuelled by presumed benefits that include its consideration as an avenue for encouraging entrepreneurship and self-help amongst the local community which, leads to a reduction in public sector expenditure and any development projects targeted at meeting needs, therefore, cost effective. In the tourism sector, community participation is a way to legitimizing tourism development, ensuring local resource management and empowerment of local community through establishment of Community-based Tourism Enterprises (CBTEs), all of which contribute to sustainable tourism development. However, despite the above stated benefits, there is empirical evidence indicating that the uptake for community participation has been relatively slow and levels of participation considered low, hence the need to interrogate the nature and how to nurture community participation for sustainable CBTEs. The purpose of this study was to assess application of co-design as an approach for effective community participation in CBTEs with particular interest to Homa Bay County. The specific objectives wereto profile tourist products in Homa Bay county, to identify the opportunities for co-design in CBTEs, to apply co-design tools and techniques in CBTEs in Homa Bay County, and to propose an appropriate co-design framework for sustainable CBTEs. The study adopted an exploratory research design approach that allowed qualitative methods of data collection which provided in-depth insight into the research questions, allowing for inductive reasoning from the tacit

knowledge of the respondents, who the researcher considered as experts of their domain. The respondents included members of two case studies from Homa Bay County: RAMA Cultural Centre and Ndhiwa Kodumba Tse Tse group. The key informants were drawn from various institutions including the Ministry of Tourism, County Government of Homa Bay, Kenya Wildlife Services, Nature Kenya and design experts from the Department of Art and Design, University of Nairobi. The findings indicate that Homa Bay county is rich in geographical, historical, mythical and cultural tourism products that need to be maximally utilized. There was evidence of spontaneous and coercive types of local community participation in tourism. Effective community participation in CBTEs was hindered by operational, structural and cultural elements. Co-design tools, methods and techniques were employed within the Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action (APPA) framework for CBTEs and these proved to be effective in enhancing community participation. The study concludes that although community participation is advocated as an integral part of sustainable CBTE development and policy documents provide a robust legal framework for participation, a major weakness is the lack of clear mechanisms for community participation. This study therefore recommends the development of an appropriate co-design framework to be used as a baseline for enhancing effective community participation in sustainable CBTEs.