Destination management's potential for improvement of the situation of local inhabitants in chosen Sub-Saharan Africa countries: implications for Ethiopia

Destination management became the key to a successful development of tourism sector in the last decades. Its role is not only in enhancing the competitiveness of the country's tourism sector on the international market but also in maximazing the net benefits from tourism for the host country. These tasks are exceptionaly important in developing countries. These countries often have unique potential in the presence of tourism atractivities but lack the so needed resources for exploiting this potential. Low level of socio/economic and technological development further limits the market opportunities of developing countries. A natural part of the tourism sector is the local population. However, local inhabitants are often reduced to a tourist atraction and thus do not gain profits from tourism in their region. On the other hand, local people bear substantial costs induced by tourism activities. To avoid this situation, the destination management should seek for more equal participation of local inhabitants in the tourism sector. This thesis will conduct an analysis of destination management in three relatively successful countries of the Sub-Saharan Africa region: Kenya, Ghana and the Republic of South Africa. The tested hypothesis is that destination management has the power to actively affect the situation of local inhabitants with regard to tourism activities in their region. The analysis is conducted in two ways. First, the programming documents of responsible tourism authorities will be compared to the actual activities of this authorities. Second, the conducted activities will be contrasted with the curent situation and problems of the particular countries. The results will then be applied on Ethiopia which is one of the least developed countries in the world but has one of the biggest tourism potentials in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.