A Quality Assessment of Education and for Kenya's Tour-operating Sector

This study examines the provision of tourism education and training in Kenya in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries. Specifically the paper examines the human resource skills needed by Kenya's tour-operating sector and the extent to which current training provision is adequate. The approach used in the present study is a modified version of WTO's Tourism Education and Quality (TEDQUAL) methodology. The results indicate considerable convergence between the perceptions of industry operators and education providers concerning quality gaps in the development of skills. A number of systemic training shortcomings are identified including curriculum deficiencies and the inadequate development and enhancement of workplace skills. In view of the resource constraints facing most developing countries, it is argued that tourism training and education should consciously address the needs of the locally-based industry and that such an approach should result in a more effective education and training system.     

Participation as motif in community-based tourism: a practice perspective

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a diversely interpreted term, which has presented understanding and practice contests. These contests highlight the centrality (or not) of participation in CBT, and even its developmental failure. We attempt to move the conversation away from whether and how much participation exists to focus on emic interpretations of how CBT is experienced. As such, our focus is on how and why communities participate in CBTs, as informed by practice theory. We examine how participation might be understood and explained across three cases from Kenya, namely Il Ngwesi, Lumo Wildlife Sanctuary and Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary. The data were obtained through in-depth interviews, participant observation and documented sources. The findings highlighted that CBT was a response to contextual challenges, led by the community elders. Community participation was often through representation, which is interpreted in relation to local practices. Case narratives and thematic analysis demonstrated that community participation appeared across the cases as a recurrent practice, or motif, its different forms influenced by local sociocultural, economic and sometimes political tensions in each case environment. Understanding how community participation takes place in different settings informs possibilities for realizing and enhancing tourism-led community development strategies, freeing participation from apparent Western standards.