1.1 Introduction
Tourism is a relevant domain of knowledge that cuts across several boundaries. It is attached to different human needs and wants outside normal work. It provides job opportunities, small-scale businesses for several people with different cultural background. Tourism turns culture into displayable objects and visitable places. Through travel programmes and documentaries on television, advertising, promotional brochures and films, tourism has generated a vast and continual flow of images and discourses about other cultures.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
In recent years the recognition of the economic potential of culture (e.g. KEA, 2006) as well as creativity (e.g. UN, 2008; 2010) seemed to position creativity as a development tool and as a potential solution to a range of economic and social problems (the need for innovation, new approaches to learning, developing social capital and community cohesion, etc.). With the advent of the global financial crisis, the need for creativity seems have climbed even higher up many political agendas.
The cultural tourism idea seemed to catch on not only because of the evolution of tourist demand but also because it fitted a range of contemporary policy agendas. Creativity has indeed been broadly applied in several fields, most notably in the creative and cultural industries. The Green Paper on Cultural and Creative industries (European Commission, 2010) was a major source of legitimation of demands for more studies of and intervention in the creative field.
Since cultural tourism has been referenced as a subset of cultural tourism, I have studied the much larger field of cultural tourism to give my research of cultural tourism history and depth. Identified cultural tourism resources include the Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice, which deals with a variety of tourism subsets and initiatives including a specific special issue on cultural tourism.
Creativity appears to have become positioned as a panacea for a wide range of problems. The development of creative cities (Landry, 2000), creative clusters (Mommaas, 2009), creative industries (O‟Connor, 2010) and the creative field (Scott, 2010) can serve to attract the creative class (Florida, 2002) and hopefully rescue the economy, as well as knitting communities together and revitalising local culture.
However, there is also a sceptical tone emerging in many recent studies of creativity (e.g. Peck, 2005), which is now also being repeated in the field of tourism (Long and Morpeth, forthcoming). The rapid rise, dissemination and subsequent critique of creative development strategies mirror the development of cultural tourism in the 1980s and 1990s (Richards, 1996, 2001). In fact „creative tourism‟ is often seen as a form of, or an extension of cultural tourism.
According to (Peter 2011:p23). Cultural tourism is a concept that only formally defined a decade ago, but in the intervening years it has seen a significant growth worldwide. The range of presentations at this conference on different creative tourism programmes from all corners of the globe is a clear indication of how widespread it now is.
The issue of economic sustainability and Practice of tourism considers many different facets of the creative tourism phenomenon, and examines the ways in which it has been developed in various places. Creative tourism has been faced with challenges in the aspect of creative tourism development and, despite the emergent critical thoughts on the subject, they tend to emphasise the positive aspects.
Therefore, in Ekiti State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Development of Promotion of Cultural Tourism as a Panacea to Economic Suitability.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Nigeria is depreciating economically due to the imminent corrupt practices and the dwindling oil resources. It is no gainsaying that overreliance on the product has affected the country’s economy thus diversification has been looked into as an alternative.
Indeed, much of the tourism development efforts in Nigeria has failed to bring about result basically because there remains a communication gap between the experts, on the one hand and the people (the of most, if not all, these resources) on the other. In fact, there are still many resources and /or potential tourist attractions in the rural set ups, which are yet to be known, let alone harnessed, by the government and it agents (Ogundele, 2001).
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to investigate the Development of Promotion of Cultural Tourism as a Panacea to Economic Suitability. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To determine the relationship between cultural tourism and economic sustainability.
- To explore the weakness and challenges of cultural tourism within the Egungun Festival in Ikole Ekiti
- To evaluate the Egungun Festival weaving industry in Ikole Ekiti
- To make possible suggestion and recommendation to the industry based on the findings of this research.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Has Egungun Festival cloth weaving in Ikole Ekiti district been able to provide job opportunity to the youths of the community?
- What is the contribution of Egungun Festival cloth weaving to the community at large in terms of co-operate image?
- What is the revenue generated from Egungun Festival cloth weaving in Ikole Ekiti district to the government per annum?
- What are the challenges faced in the industry towards cultural tourism?
- How can cultural tourism be developed and promoted as a panacea for Economic Sustainability?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
- H0: There is no significant relationship between cultural tourism and economic sustainability in Ikole Ekiti Egungun Festival
- H1: There is a significant relationship between cultural tourism and economic sustainability in Ikole Ekiti Egungun Festival
1.7 Significance of Study
This report provides an extensive analysis on cultural tourism and its sustainability to the state economic value: To the body of academic, this study will serve as a search light indicating area of further research(s) on this topic. This research work will serve as a turning point in the study of cultural tourism, particularly as it concern sustainability.
This study will also be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Development of Promotion of Cultural Tourism as a Panacea to Economic Suitability in Ekiti using Egungun Festival in Ikole Ekiti as a case study.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Cultural Tourism: Travel involving passive visitor interaction in art, music, history or cultural of a location.
Economic Development: Quantitative and qualitative changes in the economy which may be do to policy makers that promote the economic growth of an area.
Visitor: For the purpose of this research a visitor is someone who lives outside Santa Fe County.
Yarn: These are fibres which has been spun for knitting and weaving
Design: This is a drawing or outline from which something may be made
Dye: Colours, usually by dipping in a liquid. These are various types of dyes and for various categories of a cloth. Nowadays a lot of improvement has been made in synthetic dyes.
Warp: This refers to the vertical threads strips of a loom in weaving.
Weft: This refers to the horizontal threads of strips passed over and under the wrap of a loom in weaving
Straw: Stem of wheat or other grain planted that have been cut and dried. It is used for making mats.
