Residents’ Perceptions Toward Tourism as a Community Development Tool: A Case of Sultanate of Oman

Özet

Tourism has been considered a vital means of community development in several economies of the world, especially among developing and underdeveloped nations. It contributes to a lot of socio-cultural, economic and environmental positive and negative impacts. Some of the prime benefits to the host population are employment opportunities, economic growth, infrastructural development and cross-cultural understanding, etc. On the other hand, crime rate increase, inflation, lower wages, long working hours, culture shock and environmental degradation are some adverse effects of tourism. Method: For the study purpose, both secondary, as well as primary data, have been collected. ‘Exploratory Factor Analysis’ (EFA) and ‘Confirmatory Factor Analysis’ (CFA) have been used to analyze the research data. Result: The findings confirm that both economic and socio-cultural impact of tourism on community development is positive and significant, whereas the environmental impact of tourism on community development is negative and insignificant