Prospects, Challenges And Opportunities Of Community Based Ecotourism: The Case Of Wonchi Crater Lake, South West Shoa Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia is a country which endowed with the vast array of ecotourism resources. But, these resources are not yet well exploited by tourists and a variety of stakeholders. This thesis was conducted on Wonchi Crater Lake with the aim of identifying the main prospects, challenges and opportunities of this ecotourism. Three Kebeles surrounding Wonchi Crater Lake were purposively selected. Both the qualitative and quantitative methods were applied in collecting and analyzing the data. From three kebeles, 152 sample household were selected using a simple random sampling method. In addition to survey questionnaire data collection method, KII, FGD and review of secondary sources were made. The data collected were analyzed through descriptive statistics quantitatively and by narration and interpreting the meaning of words qualitatively. According to the result of study 75% of respondents rate the socio-economic contribution of Wonchi Crater Lake as high and play great role for surrounding communities’ livelihood improvement. Out of the total respondents, 125(82.2%) respondents were agree to low government attention and 134(88.2%), 143(94.1%), 136(89.5%), 134(88.2%) and 140(92.1%) agree with lack of trained human power and budget, Lack of infrastructure, absence of training and awareness creation, conflict of interest over resource and low community engagement as the challenges of Wonchi Crater Lake while the corresponding left number of respondents were not agree. Furthermore, out of the total respondents 43(28.3%), 34(22.4%), 32(21.1%), 22(14.5%) and 21(13.8%) respondents were report the attractive and beautiful landscape nature of the area, presence of hot spring around the lake, attractive culture of the community, presence of government responsible bodies and good ecotourism policy as opportunities for Wonchi ecotourism development Finally, the researcher recommended that, the government organizations would provide trainings, create awareness and engage local community in management of ecotourism to develop sense of ownership and develop the Wonchi Crater lake ecotourism