Local Community Participation in Ecotourism Development in Khmmouane province, Lao PDR A case study in Konglor village

Abstract

One of the main goals of the Government of the Lao PDR is to bring the country out of the least developed nation status by the year 2020. The governments policy is aimed at reducing poverty using tourism as the main strategy to achieve sustainable development through ecotourism, pro-poor tourism and community-based tourism. In this study determine the impacts of ecotourism that local community receives from ecotourism development and identified the level of local community participation in ecotourism development in Konglor village, Khammouane province, Laos using a well-designed and structured Questionnaire with 224 households living in Konglor village and an in-depth interview. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed by using Statistical Programme for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results confirms ecotourism development in Konglor village has benefits to the community in term of socio-cultural,economic and environment, the ecotourism project is able to improve the quality of infrastructure, water supply, increase household incomes and improve employment opportunity especially for women. The findings of this study indicates that ecotourism development in Konglor village has positive impacts more than negative

ecotourism development provides economic revenue and distribution benefits to the local community which are fair, at the same time protection and conservation of local tradition, cultural and environment. Accoding to the results, Local community participation in decision making, implementation, benefits sharing stages are high because they may have a better understanding, ecotourism can improve household income and they also have opportunities to participate in ecotourism activities within the community. Local people participation can grant more power in managing and protecting the environment and conservation forest and including the management of ecotourism activities but for the evaluation stage local community ecotourism development provied very low. Local community participation in evaluation still needs to improve to support the growth of ecotourism development. The results from this study will provide information that may be useful to improve ecotourism project in current and future in the rural area. Keywords: Ecotourism development, impacts of ecotourism, local community participation, Khammouane province, Laos. DI: 2012-23994