Local community's perception of the impacts of tourism development in rural areas–a case study in Zanzibar

Zanzibar's rural areas have problems with economic infrastructure and the development of social services. This led to an increase in criminal activities, as well as making community life hard. Unequal distribution of tourism benefits may have caused this problem, as it stems from collecting money through taxes, entrance fees, and other tourism-related payments. The main purpose of this research is to investigate how local communities perceive the impacts of tourism development in Zanzibar's rural areas. Residents' Perception of the impact of tourism development (RP), Emotional Solidarity (ES), Material Well-being (MW), Place Attachment (PA), and Intention to support further tourism development (INT) were utilized to construct the structural equation model to examine the research objectives. This study employed a quantitative research approach. The researcher selected ten villages from Unguja Island as study areas, and 732 respondents were chosen. The SPSS and LISREL software were employed to analyze the data. The findings were found to be reliable, and the study proved a significant and positive relationship. Significantly, the study proved that the community has a positive perception of the impacts of tourism development in the rural areas. Considering the study results, we can claim that this research is very important for government organizations, the main tourism stakeholders, and that it can engage residents in tourism planning. Since they are responsible for considering the villages' facilities to improve life quality for people through the tourism planning process, and to ensure an increase in individuals' wealth. Increasing the relevant literature on Zanzibar's rural tourism areas is also important since it has examined the ten rural touristic villages in a single study. This makes this study different from other studies conducted using only one village.