Summary:
Anambra State tourism is motivated by her rich cultural resources which could be packaged and sold to potential tourists, Its recorded that Nigeria’s customers would usually come from within especially in Anambra state the home of West African biggest market (Main market Onitsha), “The lack of strong tourism culture in Anambra state generally explains in part why natural attractions have not usually been appreciated by the indigenes. Some are not even aware that such attractions exist”, (Okonkwo, PG/M.A/08/49612).
Community based tourism presents a better opportunity for the residents or indigenes to benefit from all tourism related activities in a given environment, also gives them a sense of belonging to their culture and the resources. Tourism is a good source of foreign exchange and income generation in tourism-oriented economics, also a means of importation and exportation of culture. It has been observed that there is need for developing states and countries, such as Anambra state Nigeria to embrace tourism in general also to fashion out their own form of tourism not necessarily along lines of those practiced in the developed nations, (Mawfort et al).
In this work, there is an attempt to discover the role of service design to enhancing the overall outlook of a community-based tourism, in Anambra state Nigeria.
Introduction:
This thesis will focus on service design for the community-based tourism, highlighting on the case of Anambra state in Nigeria. The principal reason why tourism promoters and destination managers pay much attention to the service design in tourism industry is because tourism product itself is service, which the evaluation of its negative and positive outcome is based on the customer’s experience.
Tourism is one of the most important economic activities of the global economy and has played, also still plays a very important role in the growth of the world economy, it has the potential to deal with the key issues encountering many parts of the globe and therefore be a positive and negative force (Shone & Memon, 2008). Unless the cost and benefits are understood from the outset, strength and opportunities cannot be maximized. However, the positive influence of tourism towards the enhancement of communities in different destinations has raised many doubts. According to Mitchell and Reid (2001) (Communities, particularly rural ones, are often at the front line in service provision but last to receive benefits from that effort. Tourism in the developing world has frequently been a double-edged sword; while it may provide a venue for communities and people to augment their income or livelihood, most of benefits tend to flow out of them. Additionally, real power and decision-making regularly resides outside of community control and influence) (pp. 113-114).)
This has brought about a new phenomenon, meant to be an alternative approach to tourism known as Community-based tourism (CBT). This phenomenon looks at tourism in a way that many local people have considerable control over and involvement in its development and supervision. The aim is to keep the major part of the advantages within the local economy. As a priority, World Tourism actors acknowledge that countries should support greater involvement of communities in the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation processes of tourism plans, programs and projects (Hall, 2007; Murphy & Murphy, 2004).
Tourism is a service-intensive industry focusing on the customers‟ service experiences not only during their stay, but also prior and after it. Since most tourism products are booked and paid for in advance, customers must rely on the accuracy of accessible information. However, besides the information provided first-hand by tourism service providers, communication technologies enable customers to share product reviews through respective websites. People with common interests already interact through the internet using web blogs, chats, review websites and open communities focusing on special interest tourism or certain destinations (cp. Stickdorn 2007, Kirby 2006, Schertler 2006). As Holloway noted (2004, p. 197-198):
Research Question and Objectives:
This work aims to discover the important roles that service design will play in the tourism of Anambra state Nigeria.
Will study the different process of service design to be implemented in packaging Anambra state as a destination using the residents and indigenes as major players during these processes so that this destination would stand out in such a way that the outcome will benefit the local communities and put an end to leakages.
Reasons behind this topic is that, Anambra state is my local community, and as a tourism promoter, I had already established a tourism agency (NGO) for tourism development and promotion, focused on this state and Nigeria at large. Thus, knowing how service design will be used to enhance tourism activities in my area of study becomes most essential.
Methodology and Research Questions:
In this work, a quantitative and qualitative methodology are going to be employed/used, for quantitative aspect, a survey would be created online via surveymonkey.com which will be conducted online through various platforms like social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, linkeldn and what have you, this is to get to as much public as possible both Nigerians and foreigners. The same questionnaire would be created offline and would be conducted physically in our study area, for example, visiting institutions in this place, universities, tourism ministries and businesses in tourism and hospitality field.
Qualitative aspect on the other hand would be a one on one interview with some important players both in the field of service design, tourism, travel, hospitality and others. These companies would be in our study area and outside respectively, so that firsthand information regarding the topic of our study would be acquired.
Timetable:
To ensure that duration of this work doesn’t go beyond the established time from the school authority, one or some time management tools would be used such as pareto principle, Eisenhower Matrix Box and some others.
Narrowing down to this work’s timeframe which according to the school regulation, a period of 6 months is mapped out purposely for master thesis. And the time and assigned task for this work is listed below:
First month: The topic and the supervisor would be figured out within the first month
Second month: Gather necessary literatures available in the field, start meeting with the supervisor to discuss the topic. Complete detailed review literature and construct theoretical framework then continue forming chapters.
Third Month: Decide on the methodology to employ, then write this chapter and give proposal to supervisor for review.
Fourth Month: Conduct research for study, collect the data and analyze data from research.
Fifth Month: Meet with supervisor to discuss the result from analysis, write the entire body of the work, from the results to summary as well as conclusions.
Sixth Month: Find out requirements for submission and scheduling of final oral defense, print and submit work, then final defense if applicable.
Analysis and Findings:
Given the methodology to be used in this work, which are quantitative and qualitative method research, this part of work would be to interpret the findings from this research, reporting from the duration of survey and filling of questionnaire, stating the numbers and percentage of people who took part in the survey and filling of questionnaire as well as the one on one interview. The demography such as age, gender and social status of the people reached should be quoted based on the information gathered reporting on their nationalities is essential. Displaying of graphs, tables, figures, charts alongside this report is very important as it will give clearer view of the whole data to the reader, though must not be the primary means of reporting but a mere support.
Conclusion:
Concluding the work would be a bit of restating the problem that brought about the research, the kind of research chosen for this project, the overall importance of the research and what are expected to be accomplished at the successful completion of the work. Making these points to be clear and not repeating what has been already dealt on in the previous chapters would give the work a great face lift.
References:
- Hall, M. C. (2007). “Pro-Poor Tourism: Who Benefits? Clevedon”, Channel View Publications.
- Holloway, J.C. (2004). Marketing for Tourism, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
- Kirby, J. (2006). “Viral Marketing”, in Kirby, J. and Marsden P. (eds.), connected marketing, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
- Martin Mawfort, Ian Munt (Undated), Tourism and sustainability, New Tourism in Third the World accessed on 09/01/2019 from
- https://www.academia.edu/613154/Tourism_and_sustainability_Development_globalisation_and_new_tourism_in_the_Third_World
- Mitchell, R. E., and Reid, D.G. (2001). Community Integration: island tourism in Peru. Annals of Tourism Research, 28 (1), p. 113-139.
- Murphy, P. E. & Murphy, A. E. (2004). “Strategic Management for Tourism Communities: bridging the gap”. Clevedon: Channel View Publications.
- Okonkwo, Ebere Clementina, (PG/M.A/08/49612) accessed on 12/01/2019 from http://www.unn.edu.ng/publications/files/images/Okonkwo,%20E.C.pdf
- Schertler, W. (2006). Strategisches Affinity-Group Management – Wettbewerbsvorteile durch ein neues Zielgruppenverständnis, Wiesbaden: Gabler.
- Shone, M. C., & Memon, P. A. (2008). “Tourism, public policy and regional development: a turn from neo-liberalism to the new regionalism”. Local Economy, 23 (4), 290-304.
- Stickdorn, M. (2007). Affinity-Group Management – Capturing Elusive Scene Markets, Norderstedt: BoD.
