Tourism Development Essay -- Social Issues, Community Capacity Buildin

The purpose of the study is to assess the importance of leaders’ characteristics and their economic interest in community capacity building for tourism development. The information for this study was derived from survey questionnaires. The respondents were community leaders from Shiraz, Iran. The findings through multiple regression analysis indicate that approximately 74 percent (R ²=.737) of the variance CCB for tourism development was predicted by the leaders’ income, income from tourism, extra activities, length of residency, educational level, and family engaged in tourism industry. According to the results, the largest beta coefficient is the leaders’ income through tourism (ß=.350). It is expected that the findings could be utilized by community developers for future reassessment in tourism planning. KEY WORDS Community leaders, community capacity, tourism development, leadership INTRODUCTION The term community capacity building (CCB) is widely used among those who are concerned about community development or involved in social work and social service delivery. CCB is a central concern of both policymakers and community residents (Marrà © & Weber, 2010). It is an essential condition for development, implementation and maintenance of effective community development (Goodman et al., 1998). Many in the policy community have expressed interest in understanding why some communities are more successful in achieving positive social, economic and environmental outcomes and how to increase the capacity of communities to achieve these outcomes (Marrà © & Weber, 2010). The important role of community leaders in building community capacity for tourism development includes facilitating encouraging participation and developing leadersh... ...this study CCB is a composite variable, consisting of eight domains, namely, participation (7 items), leadership (6 items), community structure (5 items), skill and knowledge (5 items), community power (5 items), sense of community (7 items), resource mobilization (5 items) and external support (5 items). The respondents answered to each statement based on five scales that most described the current situation in their community. The value of each response for these items on the questionnaire is as follows: 0= never 1=seldom 2= sometimes 3= often 4= always. Indicators for CCB were tested for their reliability using Cronbach’s alpha. The results indicated the sufficiency and factorability of statements. It also showed satisfactory internal consistency of the manifest items measuring CCB. For this study, multiple regression analysis was conducted using SPSS program.