This study examined the effect of tourism on economic wellbeing of host communities in Cross River State, Nigeria. The study modelled the effect of service, product, hotels, transportation and infrastructural facilities on economic well being of host communities in Cross River State. It is a descriptive survey on a sample of 400 respondents from the host communities. Data obtained for the study were analyzed using percentages, mean, standard deviation and regression analysis. From the result of the regression model it was observed that product, service and infrastructure have positive impact on the on the economic well-being of the host communities. This means that if product, service and infrastructure are developed and improved, it will bring about more increase in the economic well-being of the host communities. On the other hand, hotels and transportation have a negative impact on the economic wellbeing of the host communities. Thus, increase in hotels and transportation cost will bring about a decline in the economic wellbeing of the host communities. The overall significance of the model also supports the alternate hypothesis that the model has goodness of fit and is statistically significant. In other words, tourism consumption has significant impact on the economic wellbeing of the host communities. Based on the analysis and findings of the study the following recommendations are made: Since tourism consumption has become imperative for economies to thrive successfully, it is imperative that government should develop and as well as regulate operators in the tourism destination to step up the quality of product, service and infrastructure provided in the tourist destination. This is because they have been found to have positive impact on the on the economic well-being of the host communities. The government should also come up with policy instruments containing measures that will ‘effectively’ monitor and evaluate the operations of tourism destinations. This is necessary as this research manifest the fact that hotels and transportation cost negatively affects the host communities. In other words it will bring about a decline in the economic wellbeing of the host communities if not regulated.
Tourism, Economic Wellbeing, Service, Product, Hotels, Transportation and Infrastructural Facilities
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