Residents’ Perceptions of Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts on Tourism Development in Jos Nigeria

Studying the impacts of tourism on destination is very important for sustainable development and improvement of the resident’s welfare regarding community development. This thesis investigates the perception of residents about the economic, social and environmental impacts of tourism in Jos Nigeria. A survey was undertaken to assess the factors that influence the perceptions of the residents. The questionnaire was distributed to 615 sampled residents from three local governments (Jos North, Jos East and Jos South) in Jos Nigeria. Outcomes of the study display significant variances on socio-demographic variables regarding the perception of tourism impacts on the location of the study. The principal result of this study showed that residents hold higher perceptions on all the positive economic, social and environmental impacts and subsequently, have a lower perception on the negative impacts. The findings of this study show that perceptions of tourism impacts are significantly different regarding positive environmental, negative economic, negative social and negative environmental impacts based on gender. The findings also showed that age causes significant differences on the positive social, positive environmental and negative economic impact of tourism to the location. Further findings showed that the marital status of the residents holds a significant difference on the negative economic impact in the study. Finally, the number of kids of the residents holds a significant effect on the positive economic, positive social and positive environmental impact of tourism to the location. Keywords: Tourism Environmental Impacts, Economic Impacts, Socio-cultural Impacts, Tourism Development, Perception of Residents.