Opportunities, Challenges and Development of Community Based Tourism Land Uses in Got Ramogi

Abstract

The focus of academic planning literature in several instances is in urban and metropolitan areas. As a result, there is a dearth of literature related to planning in the more remote regions. Kenya’s new system of governance has enabled the creation of counties which are considered as planning units according to Kenya County Government Act of 2012. Counties are expected to fully use their resources for development. This, therefore, means that spatial planning has a great role to play in enabling these new planning units to fully utilize their resources even those in remote rural areas. The constitution also stresses on public participation in all development initiatives. This study which adopted a non-experimental research design sought to examine the possibility of integration of community-based tourism in Got Ramogi sub location in Siaya County. The study assumed the existence of CBT products in Got Ramogi which can be used in the local economy development, which eventually translates to county development. Methods used in the collection of data were questionnaires, interviews, observation and desktop literature review. Quantitative data from the study were analyzed using SPSS while qualitative data from discussions and key informant interviews were analyzed on the basis of emerging themes. Investigation on the tourism products within the area identified several products ranging from cultural activities to nature-based assets to archeological sites. Tourism did not come out as a current land use in the area. Agriculture was the predominant land use as per the households at 72 %. Despite the efforts by the government to bring about tourism in the region and even community interest, the industry hasn’t taken off in any serious way. Several challenges were identified that have led to this ranging from poor leadership and lack of policy support, lack of guiding plans, corruption, marketing to lack of infrastructure amongst many others discussed in this thesis. This thesis concludes by making policy recommendations and providing a community-based tourism land use planning development which follows the procedural planning approach. Land use recommendations are also proposed because some of the attraction sites are sacred and are in a conserved forest.