INFLUENCE OF EVENT TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ON COMMUNITY HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN ISIOLO NORTH CONSTITUENCY, KENYA

Abstract

Events tourism is a specialty form of tourism that entails travel for purposes of attending and or participating in major one-time or recurring functions of limited duration. Event tourism incorporate different types of events which are a source of revenue generation at the destinations where the events are held. Isiolo North Constituency is characterized by pastoralist communities who, have unstable incomes. The constituency has limited administrative and management structures that would develop event tourism to access to basic social amenities by the local community. The purpose of the study was to assess the influence of event tourism development on community household income in Isiolo North Constituency. The objectives of the study were; to establish the influence of motivation on community household income, to determine the influence of high event tourism attendance on community household income, to determine the influence of event tourism diversification on community household income and lastly to determine the influence of community participation in event tourism on community household income in Isiolo North Constituency. The study employed descriptive survey design. The population of the study was adult community members. The study utilized a sample size of 409 respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview schedules, questionnaires were served to 380 community household heads, a number that was obtained proportionately per Ward. Interview schedules were served to 7 tourism officers and 22 senior tourism managers of medium sized hotels who were obtained purposively. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics and logistic regression at α=0.05. For the first hypothesis, the odds of social drivers and organizational drivers in promoting tourism related occupation were 0.867 and 1.031 respectively. The odds of high event tourism attendance influencing community household income was 1.25. The predicted odds of event tourism diversification influencing local community members to live in non-rented houses was 0.905. Lastly, in the fourth hypothesis, the odds of decision making and community involvement in event tourism planning influencing the number of working household members was 0.747 and 0.686 respectively. However, despite the predicted odds in all the four hypotheses, none of the null hypotheses could be rejected as the p-values were greater than the alpha (0.05) in all cases. The study recommended that the County Government should come up with appropriate policies that offer incentives to the community and tourism business operators to increase the rate of event tourism development. The National Government through different parastatals and the private sector should aggressively market local events so that they attain regional recognition and eventual international recognition.