The local perspective of tourism development in Ticuantepe - Residents’ pre-perceptions of future tourism development in a Nicaraguan municipality

Abstract

Nicaraguan tourism has accelerated with more than 300 % over the last 15 years and this increase can make sustainable tourism, which nowadays is highly recommended in tourism studies, more difficult to achieve. One reason for this is suggested to be that a too fast tourism development leads to insufficient time to use community participation in tourism planning, something that is considered important in the aim for a sustainable tourism development. This paper investigates one part of community participation, more specifically by analyzing residents´ pre-perceptions towards future tourism development in the Nicaraguan municipality Ticuantepe. Here qualitative semi-structured interviews were performed with nine local residents and the Tourism Minister of the municipality, to gain knowledge about the local perspective as well as a background to tourism in the region. As the terms indicate this is a preparative stage of tourism development, in a municipality that has not experienced much tourism yet but is likely to do so in the future. The results suggest that residents strongly favor a probable tourism increase, mostly because they realize the potential economic benefits of tourism, which is similar to results in other previous field studies. Residents also had many recommendations regarding future tourism development, and mentioned among other things continuing community participation, careful organization, improved marketing and infrastructure and education about tourism as important aspects. These results have also been translated to Spanish and delivered to the Tourism Minister, who in an early stage welcomed the study and explained that the results could be of value in their tourism development.