Stakeholders’ Level of Involvement and Achievement of Sustainability Tourism and Hospitality Industry in Kakamega County

Abstract

Tourism is a ‘double edged sword’, while it has immense potential to accelerate socioeconomic development in a region; it can also put tremendous pressure and strain on environment and socio-cultural ethos. The issue of sustainability thus is of great importance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the stakeholders’ level of involvement and their influence on achieving sustainability tourism and hospitality industry in Kakamega County. The study adopted the mixed method design. Slovin’s formula was used to proportionately select a sample size of 184 respondents from the target population of 349 who were enrolled for the study. Purposive sampling was used to sample tour operator managers, HOD of tourism training institution and managers of local NGO; census was used to sample senior county officers in charge of tourism, senior governmental officers and hotel managers; stratified sampling technique was used to sample registered members of local tourism association. The research instruments used to collect primary data were structured questionnaires and interview schedules. Data analysis involved the use of descriptive statistics where frequencies, mean and standard deviation were used; inferential statistics was also conducted which included correlation and regression analyses. The results were disseminated through qualitative description and use of visual tools like tables, bars and pie-charts. It is hoped that the findings of this study will inform policy on how stakeholders engagement influence tourism development in a destination, contribute to the knowledge gap and create room for further researches. The study found that stakeholders’ level of involvement had significant positive relationship with sustainable tourism and hospitality industry (p<.05; β =1.023). Based on these findings, the study concluded that it is important for the tourism and hospitality industry in Kakamega County to emphasize the role of different stakeholders for its sustainability. This study hence recommended that managements of tourism and hospitality establishments in Kakamega County should develop a comprehensive and elaborate stakeholder’ engagement plans aimed at enhancing sustainability of the sector in the County