REPOSITIONING CULTURAL TOURISM TOWARDS ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF IHIALA LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ANAMBRA STATES, NIGERIA

Abstract

Tourism industry is operating below capacity, unorganized and largely neglected by both government and the private sector, with no organized effort to unlock its potentials. These potentials when harnessed could provide sufficient economic benefit to the society. Therefore, the need to awaken and reposition cultural tourism towards economic diversification becomes imperative. This study was designed to examine the various cultural activities, ascertain the major economic activities in the study area, determine the status of the activities and investigate suitable measures for repositioning the activities towards economic diversification in the study area. Staff of tourism board and members of the community who has direct or indirect relationship with cultural activities (i.e custodians of cultural sites and other participants in cultural issues) in the community constitutes the study population. A total of 100 respondents were drawn for the study. Purposive sampling technique was employed to sample the respondents. 5 Tourism Board members and 95 members of the community were selected. Primary source of data was utilized through the use of questionnaire and observation. Data collected were subjected to statistical computation using descriptive analysis with the aid of SPSS software. The study reveals that cultural tourism has significant positive impact on economic diversification and a better option for economic development through its diverse activities. Conclusively, Aghalieaku and Ozubulu cultural activities are well organised, financed and usually record high level of patronage with intensive security than Ekwulobia & Omaba Yearly New-Yam Festival which were just coming up and several measures were put in place towards economic diversification in the community. Meanwhile all the measure were positively significant from the mean coefficients as indicated in table 3 above. Recommendations were made that government should encourage cultural tourism activities in the state by allocating by participating and allocating funds for the development and running its activities, more intensive awareness through sensitization and educational programs should be engaged to enlighten the people of the benefits of cultural tourism activities with the view of developing the activities and reposition them as an option for diversification of the economy, particularly Ekwulobia & Omaba Yearly New-Yam Festivals and both the government and private tourism firms should work on making the tourist destinations where these cultural activities take place known and accessible.