| Author: | Wakil, Md Abdul |
| Title: | Examining the associations between community capitals and residents' well-being in tourism destination community : a case study of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh |
| Advisors: | Sun, Yi (BRE) Chan, H. W. Edwin (BRE) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Subject: | Organizational resilience Tourism -- Bangladesh Sustainable tourism Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Building and Real Estate |
| Pages: | xxi, 290 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Tourism is one of the most crucial economic development options available to tourism destination communities. Despite the significant effect of tourism on the economic development in destination communities, these benefits are gained at the expense of damage to natural resources, changes to the local environment, social disorders, and changes in conventional cultural activities, which contribute to placing destination communities in a vulnerable condition. Existing studies on tourism development view it as a system, emphasising its contribution to the economy. The current perception of tourism development also tends to be resource-driven and market-oriented, ignoring the residents' well-being and carrying capacity of the destination community. Resilience is a suitable concept for tourism destination communities to recover from the challenges posed by tourism development. Community is the best scale to address resilience as the community is about building a shared identity with which its members may develop a positive self-perception by linking themselves with a large social organisation. Community resilience emphasises the development of community resources or assets that enable community members to thrive in an unfavourable environment. These tangible and intangible assets constitute community capitals, which contribute to capacity building in the midst of disturbances and adversities. Existing literature suggests six types of community capitals: human, social, natural, physical, financial, and psychological. With community capitals, community members can improve their self-development before the occurrence of any adverse event and maintain their well-being in relation to change. The study proposes a framework of co-flourishing in tourism development, with particular reference to the residents' well-being in tourism destination communities. It aims to examine the associations between community capitals and community residents' well-being. Co-flourishing means that the presence of community capitals has a direct bearing on well-being of residents in destination communities. Cox's Bazar Sadar Upazila (sub-district), Bangladesh, was selected as a study area. Five research objectives have been proposed and addressed: (1) to establish a framework of co-flourishing that links tourism development with residents' well-being through the development of community capitals, (2) to assess the present condition of community capitals through a case study of a tourism destination community, (3) to analyse the relationship between community capitals and community residents' well-being and to discuss its implications for tourism development, (4) to examine tourism development and tourism planning process in Bangladesh, specifically how and to what extent community capitals and residents' well-being have been considered, and (5) to summarise the key findings and provide suggestions for promoting tourism development at tourism destination communities in Bangladesh with particular reference to resilience and well-being. A mixed research methodology was used for data collection and analysis. Participant/field observation and documentation analysis were employed to understand the background of tourism development and tourism development plans in Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire survey for residents living in urban and rural areas of Cox's Bazar was used to assess six types of community capitals, evaluate the effects of tourism development on community capitals and explore the association between community capitals and residents' well-being. The questionnaire survey was supplemented by a focus group discussion to reveal community residents' understanding of the current condition of community capitals and tourism development. Semi-structured interviews with planners, government officials and academics were conducted to understand tourism development and planning, development control and issues related to tourism planning in Cox's Bazar and Bangladesh. A questionnaire survey with 425 respondents evaluated the condition of six capitals. In general, psychological and natural capital were in good condition: 68.5% and 70.5% of the respondents agreed that they belong to this community and can easily participate in various community activities, respectively. The community also has various natural resources (e.g., open space, potable water, and greenery) to make the community environmentally friendly. However, physical and financial capital were perceived to be less sufficient or in poor condition: 62.4%, 58.8% and 50.1% of the respondents were not satisfied with the provision of pipe-borne water facilities, sanitation facilities, and sewers and drains facilities to prevent waterlogging, respectively. Besides, not enough opportunities to find a desirable job were available in their community. Tourism development was perceived to have negative effects on tourism destination communities, including congestion and pollution, pressure on drainage and waste management facilities, deforestation and hill cutting and crime and drug use. Furthermore, the development of tourism has the potential to change family relationships and traditional cultural values, undermine social networks and cooperation and raise the prices of various daily necessary goods and services. Accordingly, community residents are likely to lose their land and be displaced from their place of residence. In contrast, tourism development can improve the overall economic condition of their community by providing the opportunity to sell local products and create employment opportunities for community residents. Findings from multiple regression analysis showed that three capitals (i.e., social, natural, and psychological) significantly predict the residents' well-being. That is, in Cox's Bazar, measures contributing to the development of social capital, preservation of natural resources, and development of a sense of community and place attachment can help improve community members' well-being. The findings from the mediation analysis indicated that the association between community capitals and well-being was partially mediated by satisfaction with community life. Thus, being satisfied with the current living condition is not enough for improving well-being. The presence of community capitals can generate higher levels of person-environment interactions that interface with well-being than satisfaction. Interviews with various stakeholders revealed that Bangladesh has implemented different types of initiatives to formulate plans concerning tourism development. However, many plans have ended in an archive without implementation. Most planning processes follow a top-down, economically oriented approach with little consideration of community capitals. The plans also neglect various stakeholders' involvement at the community level. Government officials believe one-size-fits-all tourism planning is the best solution to ease all negative effects associated with tourism development. Consequently, such a planning paradigm lacks specific foci of community and vulnerability, whose goals are quite ambiguous. Finally, this study has some recommendations that can help the destination community to reduce the negative effects of tourism development and improve the condition of community capitals. Because social, natural and psychological capitals predict well-being, several instruments can be considered. For example, the establishment of an exclusive tourist zone will help minimise the social conflicts between residents and tourists. Conservation of natural resources will be useful in reducing over-reliance on natural resources. Nurturing various forms of community-based organisations will be important to foster active community engagement and place attachment. The government should take immediate action to prepare an ad hoc master plan for tourism development in Bangladesh, integrating tourism development with the livelihood improvement of community members. Coastal tourism can be encouraged if the government can pay particular attention to physical (i.e., infrastructure), human (i.e., training), natural (i.e., conservation) and financial capital (i.e., loans or credits to local people). Planning regulations should be enforced strictly and penalties for breach of the regulations should be imposed. The concerned authorities, for example, Cox's Bazar Development Authority (CoxDA) in Cox's Bazar, should monitor closely how planning regulations are executed by different parties to ensure that regulations on tourism development are reflected properly in daily work. The significance of the thesis is twofold. Theoretically, this study demonstrates the importance of community resilience in the development of tourism in the destination community. A framework of co-flourishing that connects tourism development and community residents' well-being is proposed. The framework gains theoretical implications for tourism planning and development research by highlighting resilience as a positive outcome. Empirically, this study provides empirical evidence and new knowledge that fills the gap in local Bangladeshi literature on the assessment of the present condition of community capitals and the effects of tourism development on community capitals in the destination community. |
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| Access: | open access |
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